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DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
PRINTED BY CRAPELKT, 9, RUK DE VAUGIRARD. 
 
DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 OR. 
 
 THE CONSTANT MAN, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TREMAINE," " HUMAN LIFE," etc. 
 
 Cum inagnis vixi, cum plebeiis, cumomnihus; 
 Ut homines noscerem, et meipsum imprimis. 
 
 Dr, King's Epitaph upon Himself. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 1 i / 
 
 PARIS, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY A. AND W. GALIGNANI AND C<\, 
 
 N° 18, RUE VIVIENNE. 
 
 4 841. 
 
TO THE 
 
 LADY FREDERICK BENTINCK. 
 
 " With age decayed, with courts and business tired, 
 Caring for nothing but what ease required, 
 I little thought of launching forth again 
 Amidst adventurous rovers of the pen 1 ." 
 
 Such were the words of a man, one of the most eminent of 
 his time, whether we consider his character for arts, arms, 
 general literature, or poetry; whether as a courtier, a politician, 
 or a man of quality. What business then have I with them, will 
 your ladyship say, resembling him in none of these particulars? 
 My answer is, that if I do not in any thing else, I resemble him 
 in the four lines I have quoted. It is certain (though I do not 
 like, even at seventy-six, to talk of " age decayed") that I am 
 not a little older than when I first had the honour and good 
 fortune of being known to you ; that I have done with courts ; 
 am tired of business •, and now care for nothing but what ease 
 requires. 
 
 Were I, therefore, wise, perhaps I should not again launch 
 forth in the hazardous craft of authorship. But as the illustrious 
 Sheffield did not refrain from doing this, though all the reasons 
 he has enumerated forbade him, so I, having perhaps as much 
 leisure left as his Grace had when he ventured once more on the 
 ocean of letters, presume to follow his example. Pray heaven 
 I may, like him, safely return into port! 
 
 To pursue the figure I have adopted, I feel like one of those 
 ancient mariners, who, after having passed much of their time 
 in making voyages (whether prosperous or not), do not like 
 to be laid up on shore for the rest of their lives, short as they 
 may be. Their fancy represents that there may still remain 
 some creek or coast which they have not explored ; and not 
 willing that their bark should be moored in idleness, they once 
 more weigh anchor, and give her sails to the breeze. In plain 
 English, though tired of business, yet more tired of having 
 nothing to do, I, like the nobleman I have quoted, once more 
 enlist 
 
 " Amidst the adventurous rovers of the pen." 
 
 1 Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, 
 
 I. 1 
 
2 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 " Very good," you may reply ; 44 but what have I to do with 
 all this, that you chose to address me upon it? " 
 
 More perhaps than you are aware of. For though a name can 
 do little for a work which cannot do any thing for itself, yet if 
 that work can stand at all of itself, such a name as yours, like 
 a Corinthian capital, may give that elegance and ornament to 
 the shaft which are necessary to make it complete. 
 
 This I should say, if there were no other reason to make me 
 wish to inscribe this labour of mine to your ladyship. But, on its 
 perusal, all my readers (at least all who know you) will perceive 
 ample and appropriate reason for the wish. For who that may 
 take the trouble of investigating the character of Bertha, in the 
 following pages, and remembers the graces of your young years 
 — but above all, who that has witnessed the delightful affection 
 and mutual esteem that have so long united you and your revered 
 and noble father— but must allow that the delineation of such 
 a portrait is most appropriately dedicated to you? How justly 
 might I not also extend this still farther, and, following you 
 from girlhood to maturer years, give the same reason for recom- 
 mending the character of Lady Hungerford to your protection. 
 At all events, I have a secret, but deep-felt pleasure, in thinking, 
 that in being allowed thus to address you, a friendship which 
 has gilded so many years of my life, and has been marked with 
 such kindness and condescension on your part, may be told to 
 the world 5 and, if so, what can it tell of me but honour? 
 
 As to the work itself, if it beguile an hour of your time, by 
 any thing like amusement 5 or, if in thus addressing it to you, 
 I may cause you to believe that I have been as constant in my 
 devotion to you (though in a different way) as Clifford was to 
 Bertha 5 1 shall be richly paid for the care it has cost me. 
 
 With this I am, as I have long — long been — your most obliged 
 and attached friend and servant, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Okeover Hall, Staffordshire. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 My motives (if the world care for an author's motives) for 
 engaging in this work, I have, in part, detailed in the pre- 
 ceding epistle to the noble person there addressed. 
 
 The work has at least innocently, if not usefully, filled a 
 great deal of leisure, and adds one more Picture of Human 
 Life to those which (with whatever success) I have already 
 presumed to offer to the world. One, however, seemed to be 
 still wanting to the series, and that was the impressions made 
 by men and manners on a very young and unsophisticated 
 mind, just starting into life, beginning even from his boyish 
 days ; and this, the total inexperience of the hero, and the very 
 varied knowledge of those whom I may call his tutors, gave 
 me, I thought, a good opportunity to accomplish. 
 
 For the better promotion of my object, it was necessary that 
 the view taken should not be the mere bird's-eye view of a man 
 surveying the world at his ease, from a comfortable retreat, but 
 that he should be himself an actor, encountering and over- 
 coming difficulties, and earning by exertion and reflection what- 
 ever knowledge he might acquire. 
 
 Then again, as in all epics, whether in prose^or verse, some 
 great passion must predominate and pervade the whole, in order 
 to produce and continue the action, what could I do better than 
 to make the hero, as a lover, the mirror of constancy? Such 
 love at least teaches this lesson, among the thousands taught 
 by this all-pervading passion — that, whatever its good or ill 
 success, where the object is well chosen, and the love pure, it 
 ennobles the mind, and keeps it stainless, delicate and honour- 
 able, through all vicissitudes. 
 
 The story of Sir Harry Melford does not contradict, but 
 rather confirms this, as it was his pride as much as his affection 
 that was so wounded 1 . 
 
 All this, however, at once stamps on the work the character 
 of a novel, and throws on the author the responsibility of a 
 novelist. 
 
 ' See Vol. II. 
 
4 
 
 author's preface. 
 
 What that responsibility is, I am not going to examine, in 
 this novel-writing age, when it must long ago have been settled; 
 especially as I find it done to my* hand, by a shrewd and able 
 critic, in a manner so concentrated, and yet so comprehensive, 
 that nothing is wanting to make it complete, 
 
 "These features," says the critic, referring to manners and 
 description of scenery, " though necessary in a fiction, are not 
 its main essentials,' — which consist in the power to construct 
 a story at once surprising and congruous, and of creating 
 characters consistent with nature, themselves, and the cir- 
 cumstances of their lives, as well as of truly developing them 
 in conduct, narrative, and dialogue 
 
 Nothing can be more lucid than this direction, and I will only 
 add, that in the following pages 1 have endeavoured to construct 
 a story at once surprising and congruous, and to create charac- 
 ters consistent with nature, themselves, and the circumstances 
 in which they are placed. 
 
 My chief object, however, being a view of motives to action, 
 as well as the more tender motions of the heart, I am aware 
 that there are in the book, as I think there ought to be, many 
 didactic digressions and episodes. 
 
 For these I shall not offer the least apology to anybody who 
 chooses to quarrel with them. All may not have the same taste ; 
 but for myself, I see not how a novel which has for its object 
 something more than the mere pictures of a magic-lanthorn, 
 and aims at a knowledge of the springs of human nature, as 
 well as amusement, can possibly realize that object without 
 partaking of the didactic character. 
 
 Those who differ from me are welcome to their opinion. 
 I pursue mine till I have met with better reasons than I have 
 hitherto heard, against the mingling of didactic digression with 
 amusing narrative. 
 
 The discussions indeed here presented are, from the inexpe- 
 rience of the youthful De Clifford, absolutely called for as a 
 part of his first initiation into life. I only wish that I were as 
 sure of the merit of their execution as I am of the propriety 
 of their introduction. 
 
 ■ Review of " Greyslayer," in the Spectator of July lilh, 1840. 
 
DE CLIFFORD'S 
 PREFACE TO THE MEMOIR. 
 
 What has prompted me, in my old age, to conceive the 
 notable design of writing any part of my history, much more to 
 publish it, will, I have no doubt, be indifferent to the world. 
 But that world is gone by me, and I have nothing left but re- 
 miniscences of the past for my mind to rest upon ; and perhaps 
 it is better to indulge them than to go to sleep before my time. 
 
 This, however, only concerns myself. What is it to others? 
 
 Why, something ; for it will shew a good deal of what is of 
 consequence to a human creature — the knowledge of his own 
 heart, and something of that of others. Upon this subject I will 
 translate some passages of a French letter now before me, which 
 will perhaps explain what I would say, as to the scope and end 
 of the following pages, better than I could myself. 
 
 " You put me at ease, Sir, in dispensing with the necessity 
 of telling you the news of the day, which you rightly call a se- 
 cond edition of the days that have gone before ; the only differ- 
 ence being in the names of the actors who appear on the scene. 
 There are the same intrigues, the same changes. Nothing re- 
 sembles current news more than the news which is past. But 
 when our study is the heart, we need not go out of ourselves (if 
 we chose to think so) to get at an endless diversity. And yet 
 what a spectacle is our soul, when we leave the contemplation 
 of it for the frivolities which engage us ! For we then seem to 
 abandon the study of our own hearts and understandings, to be 
 the confidants of all the rest of the world. Thus we know every- 
 body's mind but our own. Don't talk to me of a man whose soul 
 preserves an incognito to himself. Yet, when plunged in luxury 
 and pleasure, how can it be otherwise? Mallebranche got out of 
 
6 DE CLIFFORD'S PREFACE. 
 
 fashion because people preferred a search for pleasure to a search 
 after truth. But recal a man to an inquiry after his duty, or the 
 nature of his being as it appears in his life, and the ' Recherches 
 de la VeVite' will again be the mode 1 ." 
 
 To all this I agree, and if in relating what I have felt myself, 
 and witnessed in others, " I wind me into the easy-hearted man," 
 and set him before himself, shall it be said that the attempt is 
 useless? I trust not, and therefore hasten to begin, though far 
 from certain whether, after beginning, I shall proceed far with 
 my notable undertaking. 
 
 Let me add, that I have no wish to disguise the many weak- 
 nesses that will appear in this memoir. Who, that is human, is 
 without them? Besides, as one of my chief objects is, if possible, 
 to be a beacon to others who may be pursuing the same path, I 
 should ill perform my task if I did not set myself down exactly as 
 I was. 
 
 What I attempt is a history of heart; and 1 hope 1 shall 
 not fail. 
 
 ' Lcltres Ilccreativos, 
 
DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. PICTURE OF A DECAYED GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Though my estate be fallen, yet I was well born. 
 
 Shakspeare.— All's Well thai Ends Well, 
 
 What are you ? 
 
 Tour name? Your quality? 
 
 My name is lost.— 
 
 Yet am I noble.— Lear. 
 
 What Shall I say you are ? 
 Tell the Earl, 
 
 That the Lord Bardolfe doth attend him here.— 2 Hen. IV. 
 
 As an autobiographer generally commences with his birth, pa- 
 rentage, and education, I will, in this outset of my history, say some- 
 thing of mine. 
 
 Though (particularly in the early part of my life) I was little 
 known to fame or fortune, I derive my lineage from remote, and 
 even illustrious antiquity. My name is De Clifford, and I trace my- 
 self, in a direct line, from the renowned feudal barons of that name, 
 though so high up, that (and I am not sorry for it) I have none of 
 the blood of the murderer of young Rutland in my veins. My im- 
 mediate ancestors spring from Sir William De Clifford, son to Roger 
 Lord Clifford, a baron of the time of King Richard the Second. I 
 mention Sir William in particular, because from his marriage with 
 one of the co-heiresses of the unfortunate Lord Rardolfe, of Shak- 
 sperian, as well as historic memory, he became possessed of the 
 lordship and castle of Bardolfe, in the parish of that name, in the 
 north, where I first drew Ijreath, and where the wreck of our fa- 
 mily, shorn of its beams, have continued sinking ever since. 
 
 Here the line of Bardolfe flourished as barons summoned to Par- 
 liament, till Thomas, fifth baron, the friend of old Northumberland, 
 perished with him in the battle of Bramham Moor, fighting foi 
 
8 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 York against Henry IV. Moreover, though his death in the field 
 deprived him of the honour of losing his head with the Mowbrays 
 and Nevilles, after the battle, a noble revenge was glutted in regard 
 to his body, by quartering what were called his rebel limbs, and 
 exposing them on the gates of London, York, Lynn, and Shrews- 
 bury, while his head ornamented that of London. 
 
 Bui, how little did this high lineage, and this honourable fate, 
 avail his descendants ! His attainder and forfeitures reduced the fa- 
 mily 5 and though the castle, and part of the estate of Bardolfe, was 
 restored to my female ancestress on her marriage with Sir William 
 Be Clifford, yet it was so diminished in value, and Sir William, 
 being a younger brother, was so little distinguished by the gifts of 
 fortune, that he could not hold up his head with the rest of the 
 Cliffords. Even they are now all dissipated, the heirs male of the 
 original barony being long ago extinct ; and, though both titles and 
 fortune have been carried by females into other illustrious families, 
 the old name itself of De Clifford is nearly lost in the same obscurity 
 in which our branch of it had so long continued \ 
 
 From this account of our fate, it will not be surprising that all 
 "ntercourse between ourselves and our high relations had for a very 
 tong time been entirely dropped ; we did not well know even to 
 'Vhom we belonged ; the posterity of Sir William De Clifford almost 
 became Bardolfes, and, lowering by degrees to almost nothing, 
 continued in the village where the heads of that name had originally 
 flourished, while the castle and manor of Bardolfe had long passed 
 by sale into other hands. 
 
 Thus, with all his ancient blood, my father was, in substance, 
 scarcely more than a farmer — a gentleman farmer indeed, with a 
 better title to armorial bearings than almost all his rich neighbours, 
 who yet looked down upon him as, at the very best, that mortified, 
 though not always humbled character, a " decayed gentleman. 3 ' 
 
 Yet, as if to mock him the more, as his very small estate, the 
 remnant of former times, was his own, he was designated, in the 
 language of the northern province where it lay, by the high-sound- 
 ing title of Statesman. What sort of honours belonged to that title 
 may be imagined by the southern reader, when he learns that the 
 possessor of a freehold of twenty, nay of ten pounds a year, enjoys 
 that denomination among his simple neighbours. 
 
 The family had so long gone down hill, that my father had 
 quietly descended with it into the class, and almost into the charac- 
 ter, of mere yeomen. Had he done so entirely, and not cast, as he 
 sometimes, though seldom, did, a longing look to what his proge- 
 nitors had been, he would, perhaps, have been happier. But luckily 
 these interruptions came not often, and did not last long. 
 
 1 As I trace only from the ancient barony, to which alone I allude, no mention is 
 made of that other barony of Clifford of Chudleigh, a creation of Charles II. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 9 
 
 Our name, which had been for centuries on the grand jury, was 
 not yet struck out, and my father was summoned regularly, as if 
 still one of the squirearchy. It was then that a sort of struggle be- 
 tween pride and prudence commenced, in which pride, for the 
 lime, generally got the better : for he always attended, and was al- 
 ways mortified. 
 
 Though upon the grand jury, not being a proper subject for the 
 commission, he was the only one of them not included in the invi- 
 tations to dinner given in open court by the judge 5 and when the 
 jury advanced with their presentments, with their rich and titled 
 foreman at their head, he was seen among them, hesitating, alarmed, 
 and bashful, and evidently sustaining a struggle of hurt feelings. 
 He wished to shew himself to the court, and the notice of the 
 county, but allowed every one that pleased to push before him, so 
 that he could not be seen. Or if he ever obtained a place to be ob- 
 served, it was only by entreaty, which yet it hurt him to make. 
 While in the discharge of duty, his brother jurymen were not un- 
 civil, and he felt some little consequence 5 but the assizes over, he 
 was instantly extinguished, and returned to peace and obscurity at 
 home. The first of these my father found so valuable, that he fre- 
 quently vowed never again to hazard it, by attending another assizes; 
 but the vow was always broken, and he agreed with my mother 
 (herself of an origin somewhat belter than plebeian, being the 
 daughter of the younger son of a knight), that the pretensions of the 
 blood of the De Cliffords and Bardolfes ought not to be sacrificed 
 without a struggle. 
 
 There was, however, another reason that told in producing this 
 feeling. I have said we had descended in the scale of gentility, but 
 it was by degrees. At the Revolution, my great-grandfather was of 
 no mean consideration among the Yorkshire Whigs, and owned the 
 castle which gave us one of our names, though he sold it, in the 
 end, to make good a large portion to his only sister, who married 
 into a very noble family. This was so flattering to his pride, that he 
 agreed to give her a fortune far beyond his means, to the still further 
 reduction of the funds of his posterity. Nor did he reap the ad- 
 vantages he hoped from the connexion 5 for the figure and fortune 
 of the two families being so unequal, they first grew cool, and then 
 were absolutely estranged from one another 5 so that my grand- 
 father had no intercourse with his aunt's family, and dying when 
 my father was an infant, and there being no maiden aunt to keep 
 up remembrances, the very name of these high relatives seemed 
 even then almost forgotten. 
 
 A week, however, generally restored my father to himself, and, 
 forgetting the gentleman in the farmer, he returned, as I have ob- 
 served, to obscurity, and his usual occupations. 
 
 Luckily these gave him little time to reflect upon any thing but 
 
10 
 
 DE CLIFFORD-} 
 
 how to turn them best to account, in support of a numerous family, 
 which, statesman as he was, forced him to eke out his income by 
 renting a considerable farm under Sir Harry Goff, the squire of the 
 neighbouring parish. 
 
 This gentleman's family was the highest in degree with which we 
 had any intercourse, though that of Hastings, to whose ancestors 
 the old castle and manor of Bardolfe had passed, by the sale I have 
 mentioned, above a century before, were of higher descent, and of 
 infinitely higher fashion and condition. They, however, resided in 
 a distant part of the country, and, for some years at least, I knew 
 nothing of them but their name. The castle, indeed, had, all but 
 one tower, long been in ruins, like its former owners 5 and though 
 very picturesque and romantic, frowning from the top of a steep 
 bank which rose abruptly from the river (also bearing our name), 
 it afforded no temptation, because without accommodation, for any 
 of the present owners to visit it. 
 
 What was left of it besides this tower were mere perforated walls* 
 held together only by the tough embraces of the ivy and caucus 5 
 yet, there was a " sullen dignity ■' about this old place, which, with 
 other reasons, made it my absolute delight. But I am yet scarcely 
 born, so must not anticipate. 
 
 I had several brothers (for my mother was more prolific than 
 rich) ; and a child once a year, for five years together, did not add 
 to the means of the Statesman. My brothers, however, had huge 
 limbs and healthy stomachs — which latter by no means regarded the 
 coarse porridge and milk of the north as an evil. In short, they ail 
 grew and waxed strong, and gave our parents little uneasiness on 
 the score of health. 
 
 They were all rather favourites with the Goff family, and the 
 good-natured Sir Harry (who derived his fortune and descent only 
 from a rich clothier), in his secret mind, could not help showing us 
 much consideration on account of our blood. 
 
 The truth is, that Sir Harry and his wife and family, though very 
 independent as to money, were not at all so as to their position in 
 life. With many sterling qualities, they spoiled all, by quitting what 
 they were (plain country folks), to be what they were not, denizens 
 of fashion. 
 
 In this they lavished more money than taste. Sir Harry s common 
 sense was rendered inefficient by a factitious fondness for the arts, 
 and what he called literature, of neither of which he knew much \ 
 and his wife and daughters thought fashion consisted in being always 
 over-dressed, and talking what they called French. 
 
 All this dazzled their country neighbours, whatever it might do 
 the people they copied ; and as in other respects they had a sort 
 of general familiarity of manner, they were not without considera- 
 tion in the country, and were even popular. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 11 
 
 For my own part, I at first thought them demigods, preferring 
 their manners and appearance at least to all others about me 5 and 
 I especially had a high opinion of their learning, on the strength 
 of a considerable library which Sir Harry had collected, though no 
 scholar, and from the young ladies often talking a language I did 
 not understand. For I was always, I know not why, unlike other 
 boys, and very unlike indeed to rny elder brothers 5 being fond of 
 poring over whatever books I could get, while they sported with 
 Sir Harry, or assisted our father in the superintendence of the 
 farm. But as for me, from a child, I had a sort of world of my own, 
 which I peopled with images of my own fancy sometimes grand, 
 sometimes grotesque, sometimes more common-place : making 
 them, however, always to tell stories to myself, which quite satisfied 
 me for the want of other companions 5 so that though I was often 
 solitary, I was never alone. 
 
 In short, I became a kind of character, for such an urchin, and 
 as I grew up, one of the Miss Golfs, who read poetry, said I was, 
 like poor Edwin, 
 
 " No vulgar boy ; 
 Deep thought oft seemed to fix my infant eye, 
 Dainties I heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy, 
 Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy." 
 
 I could myself carry on her comparison with Edwin, which made 
 me not a little proud, for I was certainly, 
 
 " Silent when glad; affectionate though shy; 
 And now my look was most demurely sad ; 
 And now I laugh'd aloud, yet none knew why : 
 
 The neighbours stared and sigh'd, yet blessed the lad ; 
 Some deem'd him wond'rous wise, and some believ'd him mad '." 
 
 One thing indeed inclined my good parents to indulge this quieter 
 disposition of mine. I was the only one of the family who had not 
 strong health. I was even weak in body and limbs, and in these 
 respects inferior to my sturdy brothers ; so I was allowed to lounge 
 with a book under a tree, or in a garden of most antique taste, oc- 
 cupied by a hind who had charge of the old walls of the castle. 
 
 The garden itself was more interesting for its said antiquity and 
 wildness than either its beauty or cultivation, for it resembled that 
 described by Virgil, as also belonging to an old hind or gardener : 
 
 "Hie rarum tamen in dumis olus, albaque circum 
 Lilia verbenasque premens, vescumque papaver 2 " 
 
 The mouldering battlements that surrounded this, to me, inte- 
 resting spot, were shrouded with elder flowers, and wild honey- 
 
 1 The Minstrel. 
 
 2 Some scattering pot-herbs here and there he found, 
 Which, cultivated with his daily care, 
 
 And bruised with vervain, were his frugal fare— Drydisk. 
 
12 
 
 DR CLIFFORD; 
 
 suckle, but particularly wall-flowers, fed most luxuriantly by the 
 old mould and mortar that filled up the interstices of these 44 time 
 disparting towers." 
 
 To lie under their rough canopy in the morning sun, and pore 
 over such books as I could read, gave me such intense pleasure, 
 that I have never seen these plants since without thinking of that 
 innocent and happy time 5 so that in after years, when the world 
 had a far different hold of me, I thought Scott must have, in some 
 delightful dream, seen me, when he wrote those descriptive lines : — 
 
 " 5 And well the lonely infant knew 
 Recesses where the wall-flower grew, 
 And honey- suckle loved to crawl, 
 TJp the low crag and ruin'd wall. 
 I deem'd such nooks the sweetest shade 
 The sun in all his round survey'd - r 
 And still I thought that shatter'd tower 
 The mightiest work of human power," 
 
 This disposition of mine to reading began to show itself at a very 
 early age. At five I was tolerably acquainted with Bible history ; 
 befc-re nine, with the History of England 5 and before twelve, had 
 begun to relish poetry ; — not in the namby-pamby modern rhymes, 
 such as are castigated by theMaeviad and Baviad, but in the vigo- 
 rous conceptions and language of real masters : — 
 
 "Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides, 
 And Tireseas, and Phineus, prophets old." 
 
 By these I mean our own great masters of song, Spencer, Shak- 
 speare, and Milton. These got such possession of me, even as a 
 child, that I never could afterwards relish the more modern, or as 
 I thought them, flatter compositions then in vogue. Hayley, I could 
 not bear, and even Cowper, I am afraid I thought prosaic. I should, 
 however, observe, that I speak of a time when those bursts of the 
 wild afflatus which have warmed our still more modern bards were 
 neither known nor thought of. 
 
 It may be asked where I could get the provision for this taste of 
 mine. Our old Grange, to be sure, had a small closet, in which I 
 used to pass an hour sometimes by myself, on account of a few 
 books it contained 5 but they were only the great Sherborne Bible, 
 a still greater Herbal (much consulted by my mother) 5 and Fox's 
 Martyrs, an account of the rebellion of Forty-five, and Glanville 
 upon witches — much consulted by myself. 
 
 The deficiency, however, was made up to me by the good- 
 natured Sir Harry, who, amused and interested with my curiosity 
 and love of reading, similar, be said, to what his had been at my 
 age, had a sort of pleasure in fostering it, by allowing me the use 
 of any books I wished in his library. 
 
 It was my evident passion for these, I believe, that made Sir 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 13 
 
 Harry often tell my father he would do well to follow up this incli- 
 nation of mine for books, by making me a scholar. ' 4 That boy," he 
 used to say, "for aught you or I know, may in time be a bishop. 7 ' 
 This was not thrown away upon either my father or myself, and 
 I was allowed full liberty in bestowing myself as I pleased in pursuit 
 of study. 
 
 In this pursuit I ofttimes, when at fault myself, attacked our 
 curate, Mr. Beardmore, where I hoped for what I did not always 
 find, explanations in matters of history. 
 
 He, however, did me some service, by turning me over to his 
 clerk, an old man of the name of Doughty, who, being lame, 
 and a sort of scholar, kept a little children's school, and spent all his 
 spare time in reading Baker's Chronicle, Gwillim's Heraldry, the 
 Pilgrim's Progress, and other compositions of the same classical 
 character. But what made him chiefly valuable to me was, that, 
 from this turn of his, among other things, he knew all about the 
 Cliffords and Bardolfes, who he said were formerly the best gentle- 
 men in the land, only they lost their fortunes when York and Lan- 
 caster came up (such was his phrase) — in the wars of which, and 
 indeed the older English history in general, he was particularly 
 knowing and voluble. 
 
 It was, no doubt, to this early director of my studies that I owe 
 the veneration I have for ancient times, and ancient birth, of course 
 not forgetting my own. For when old Doughiy told me these secrets 
 about my ancestors, I felt my heart swell within me, and I sighed, 
 and lamented to think that my father and brothers were reduced 
 almost to follow the plough, instead of leading armies. 
 
 The effect of all this, if good, was by no means unmixed with 
 what might be deemed evil. For I contracted such a liking for the 
 old ruins at the Castle, with all its associations, connecting my fa- 
 mily with ancient grandeur, that the contrast between that venerable 
 spot, and my father's confined and crowded, though not uncom- 
 fortable dwelling, became comparatively disagreeable. 
 
 By degrees, too, my frequent brooding over the consequence 
 which I always thought our forefathers had unjustly lost, generated 
 a sort of consequence in myself, child as I was, that contrasted 
 sadly with our present decayed situation-, and grief at this produced 
 in me a sensibility of disposition which operated in more ways than 
 one. For I was keenly alive to every thing that partook of high cha- 
 racter, and high manners \ and was quick in observing and appre- 
 ciating the difference between persons of polish and education, 
 when I happened to see them (which indeed was but rarely), and 
 compared them with the homeliness of those who yet were my closest 
 relatives. 
 
 This made me unhappy, and was a great disadvantage in after 
 life, till experience of the real value of things, and the thought 
 
DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 how Utile it always is, in comparison with our expectations here, 
 and how absolutely nothing in comparison with what is to come, 
 recovered my too sensitive mind, and " cleansed the foul bosom" 
 of much " perilous stuff." 
 
 While my mind and temper were thus early forming, Sir Harry, 
 who had a regard for my father, interested himself about me so 
 much that, at his desire, instead of being apprenticed to some bu- 
 siness, as was designed, I was sent to a considerable and well en- 
 dowed school in the north of Yorkshire, with a view to become a 
 scholar, and taking my chance of what scholarship might procure 
 me by an exhibition at Oxford. 
 
 This delighted me, for I lived upon my books ; and my master, 
 though of most homely manners, was fully capable of directing me : 
 for though he joined the farmer to the schoolmaster, with a view to 
 cheaper housekeeping, his studies at Queen's College, Oxford, had 
 by no means been thrown away. 
 
 Mr. Ebenezer Crackenthorpe ( for that was his northern name ) 
 was in fact an excellent classic, and though a rough yeoman in ap- 
 pearance, was also an excellent instructor. It was indeed wonderful 
 sometimes to see him come reeking in a frieze coat and mud shoes, 
 from his farm yard, to the schoolroom, to talk (as he did with spirit, 
 and almost enthusiasm) of Homer's heroes, or Horace's rules of 
 life, which he knew as well how to appreciate as any Professor of 
 Oxford or Cambridge, or even a Quarterly or Edinburgh Reviewer. 
 
 To this was added instruction in writing, arithmetic, and even, 
 for the upper boys, Euclid 5 and for all this, together with substan- 
 tial and healthy, though homely, food, our fathers, some of them 
 ranking among gentlemen, paid twenty pounds a year. 
 
 Here I ought, I know, to pause at the threshold of my confessions. 
 For what minion of the world, who measures every thing by expense, 
 or what dandy schoolboy, who measures every thing by fashion, 
 will be willing to look for either profit or improvement to be had 
 for twenty pounds a year ? What either of scholarship or knowledge 
 of mankind (the only knowledge perhaps worth having), can be 
 acquired, as all public-school men will exclaim, in the wilds of 
 Yorkshire, among boors and savages ? 
 
 Yet both the scholastic knowledge and the real manliness of my 
 Cumberland and Yorkshire brethren, in every thing that required 
 it, were at least equal to any hero of Westminster or Eton 5 though 
 as to early knowledge of the world, if that mean dress and dandyism, 
 getting drunk, or other precocious energies, they may, in this, but 
 no other sense, be inferior to those boys who would be men before 
 their lime. The intrepidity and assurance, indeed, of modern man- 
 ners may be sooner acquired 5 but even that depends so much upon 
 nature, that the difference is trifling 5 and, as to expense, I have 
 seen as many, perhaps I might say more, unlicked ( cerlainlymore 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 15 
 
 untaught) cubs come out oflhe hands of private tutors, who re- 
 ceived three hundred a year a piece for them, than I ever remember 
 in the romantic and hardy regions of Sedbergh 1 . 
 
 To return to my progress at this my homely school, it was, in 
 learning, considerable, and, but for one drawback, would have 
 been so in happiness. My ambition (never great as to anything 
 else) was much gratified in the one 5 but the content which our 
 simple life might have generated was too much leavened with 
 jealousy of one another's condition, to secure the enjoyment of the 
 other. Most of us were, like myself, sons of decayed or decaying 
 gentlemen, or yeomen, or topping tradesmen in the neighbouring 
 towns \ yet we were not without a sprinkling of gentry too, whom 
 the reputation of the school had attracted to it 5 and with one of 
 these I made a pleasing intimacy, which afterwards had a decided 
 influence on my life. 
 
 My friendship, indeed, with Foljambe Hastings, led to what oc- 
 casioned the most violent crisis, whether of pleasure or pain, which 
 my heart ever knew. By what I thought an extraordinary coin- 
 cidence, he was the son and heir of the gentleman whom I have 
 mentioned as the owner of the old castle of Bardolfe formerly pos- 
 sessed by my own ancestor, which at once threw a sort of in- 
 terest about him, and also about me, which no others in the school 
 could feel for one another. 
 
 Foljambe Hastings was descended, as his name indicates, from 
 an illustrious family, and his father,, one of a very old school, had 
 notions of his own as to education, which, with the reputation of 
 Sedbergh, induced him to place his son there previous to going to 
 Eton, at which a year or two, by way of polishing off the Yorkshire 
 roughness, would, he thought suffice. As he wished him, he said, 
 to be a real English country gentleman, in whose character a sort 
 of sturdy hardihood formed a considerable ingredient, he sought to 
 lay the foundation of it in this plain and homely academy, before he 
 was exposed to the mischiefs of the too high refinement prevalent 
 in higher seminaries. 
 
 If he contracted a little rust from blunter companions, it would 
 soon be dissipated, his father thought, in the politer air designed 
 for him later; and meantime to buffet with stout sons of nature 
 would call forth and exercise his own innate powers. He might, to 
 be sure, contract intimacies below his level 5 but from any thing 
 like real derogation, Mr. Hastings was quite satisfied that his son's 
 sense of his own high blood would always preserve him. 
 
 Such was the reasoning of the elder Mr, Hastings when he sent 
 the heir of Foljambe Park to buffet, as he said, with the stout yeo- 
 men, and sturdy half-gentlemen (among whom I was one), who were 
 laying in their stores of learning at Sedbergh. 
 
 1 Sedbergh, in Yorkshire, was once, and perhaps is still, celebrated for its learning. 
 
16 DE CLIFFORD 
 
 But though Foljambe Hastings was in his treatment conside c& 
 no more than ourselves, in his air and manners he was superior to 
 us all 5 so that not only was he regarded with some jealousy himself, 
 but I, whom he distinguished, met with a great deal of it. 
 
 At first this surprised me, but in after life I found it was the way 
 of the world. Sturdy as we may be from nature, and as we are 
 taught still more to be by the levellers of the age, we are less in- 
 clined to deny, what seem the natural, or, as it were, the legiti- 
 mate privileges of superior condition, than to rest without grumbling 
 at a leap over our heads by a mere equal. 
 
 Thus if Foljambe Hastings was regarded with some little jealousy 
 by our schoolmates, I met with a great deal more, from having no 
 higher pretensions to his preference than any others so that I 
 generally went by the name of the " would-be-gentleman." 
 
 This hurt me. And yet, barring the inequality of our conditions, 
 every thing pointed to friendship between Foljambe and me : the 
 same age, the same tastes, the same feelings, and sense of right and 
 wrong. In short, we made good the " idem velle et idem nolle," as 
 forming the basis of a lasting friendship, and not unaptly we some- 
 times reminded one another of the brotherly love between Milton 
 and Henry Lawes, so celebrated in the beautiful Lycidas, which 
 Foljambe seemed to love as well as myself, though both so young. 
 
 One would have thought that the enjoyment of a pleasure so 
 pure, so natural, so incapable of hurting any body, and might I not 
 add, so enjoined by the revered author of our religion himself, as 
 friendship, could have given offence to nobody. But not so. The 
 distinction which Foljambe shewed me was deemed an affront by 
 the other boys, and they disliked us both for it 5 him, for preferring 
 a mere equal to themselves 5 me, for being so preferred, I thought 
 this very hard, but, as I have observed, I afterwards found it was 
 the way of the world. 
 
 For some lime we were regardless of this ill will, and continued 
 our studies, our walks, and our plays together; for which, strange 
 to say, we were sent to Coventry by our sulky schoolfellows. Even 
 this we did not much mind, any more than their sneers of un- 
 kindness when thrown together with them ; though I own my little 
 reasoning mind set busily to work to ascertain, if it could, from 
 what spice of the devil all this could arise. 
 
 At length the ill-will of those who envied us the power of making 
 ourselves happy without them (for this seemed the amount of our 
 crime) broke out into open hostility. There was a lad of the name 
 of Ramshorn, about fifteen years of age, the son of an innkeeper 
 in the neighbourhood, whose father piqued himself on his inn's 
 being avoided by gentlemen, on account of his rudeness. This lad 
 was dull enough at books, but had a swaggering air of vulgar inso- 
 lence, very terrific to his juniors, whom he belaboured without 
 
OR THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 17 
 
 mercy, and very hateful to his equals, whom he only did not bully 
 from fear of their turning again. He was vulgar in his looks, vul- 
 gar in his mind, vulgar in his dress, in short, vulgar in every thing, 
 and what Shakspeare calls a "proud, shallow, filthy, worsted- 
 slocking knave." Like his father, he was a great stickler for 
 equality of all kinds, which he proved by soundly thrashing all the 
 boys below him who would not do his bidding. This doctrine of 
 equality, however, was so well relished by the school at large, that 
 our lives (Foljambe's and mine) were made uncomfortable by it. 
 For when we appeared together arm and arm, it was thought that 
 we were too proud to associate with the rest ; we were laughed at, 
 and a cry of Py lades and Orestes set up in derision $ and once, under 
 Ramshorh's directions, we were hissed. 
 
 This was beyond bearing, and Foljambe's aristocratic spirit re- 
 solved to assert itself, by challenging the Tribune. 
 
 I saw the fight, and a desperate one it was. They were pretty 
 equally paired. The Roundhead had the advantage in weight, but 
 the Cavalier in activity. One was the most powerful in bone, the 
 other in muscle. Each seemed resolved to conquer or die : the 
 one to pull down what he hated as a superior, the other to preserve 
 his own position. In short, it seemed almost an epitome of the 
 notable struggles between the Radicals and Conservatives, which I 
 have since lived to witness in the world. The Tribune however 
 had this advantage, that the great majority of those who looked on 
 showed themselves all of his clique, cheering him as their champion 
 at every successful blow, and encouraging him at every thing like 
 a check 5 while Hastings had nothing but his own spirit, and a sense 
 of his own good cause, on which to rely. 
 
 In the end this good cause, and the spirit and blood of Hastings, 
 prevailed 5 the conquered Ramshorn was led off the ground by his 
 sullen seconds, growling like Polyphemus, and the victor kept pos- 
 session of the field. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SCHOOL ADVENTURES. 
 
 What news, Lord Bardolfe ? 
 The times are wild : contention, like a horse 
 Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose, 
 And bears down all before him. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Second Part Henry IV. 
 
 The next morning, Ramshorn being sufficiently recovered, a-nd 
 Hastings quite fresh, Mr. Crackenthorpe summoned us all to his 
 presence. He was sitting with dignified gravity in his chair of 
 state, high-backed, covered with dark brown leather, and splendid 
 
18 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 with brass nails, often admired by his younger disciples. On one 
 side were two or three shelves, containing his Greek and Latin 
 treasures, which he always eyed with complacency 5 on the other, 
 a small window made on purpose, as a sort of telescope, through 
 which at a glance, as a relaxation from study, lie could survey the 
 details of his farm-yard. He had summoned all his gravity to give 
 effect to the oration he had meditated, on the great breach of the 
 peace which had been committed. On his right hand, and in a 
 lower chair, sat his assistant, Mr. Thornthwaite, as a sort of puisne 
 judge on the important occasion. The culprits, and all the rest, 
 stood mute and anxiously around ; so that, notwithstanding my 
 fright, it reminded me of my Ovid, which I had that very day to 
 construe — 
 
 Considere duces et vulgi 
 Stante corona. 
 
 Mr. Grackenthorpe having first, as a just man, asked the cause 
 of the quarrel, and been answered by Ramshorn, that Foljambe had 
 insulted him, the pedagogue replied, in his broad Cumberland dia- 
 lect, " Yoong lad, take care what thou say'st-, Mr. Fooljamb Hast- 
 ings is a gentleman, and a gentleman never insoolts any one. But 
 I thought," continued the pedagogue, " and I had hoped, that 
 where all were so coomforlable as ye are with me, ye would all be 
 civil to one another, and live in peace, and it is my duty to poonish 
 those who will not/ 1 
 
 At this he brandished a rod, which, like the fasces of a Roman 
 consul, lay before him on the table, adding much to his dignity in 
 adding to his power. He went on thus : 
 
 "Before 1 proceed to the ratio ultima, which you all know 
 means, Anglice, condign punishment, and vulgarly, a good flog- 
 ging, I must know the particulars, and require to be told wherein 
 the insult, which Ramshorn says he received from Fooljambe, 
 consisted." 
 
 Ramshorn (rather, what is called in common language, dumb- 
 founded) could allege no insult on the part of his adversary, except 
 that he was so proud that he would not associate with the boys in 
 general, but chose to keep aloof, with one or two favourites, my- 
 self for one. 
 
 "Take care again, lad," said Mr. Grackenthorpe : "for thou 
 convictest thyself. Noscitur a socio is a true proverb. His choice 
 of a friend shews he is no ways proud at all ; and at any rate, it is 
 no insult." 
 
 To this Mr. Thornthwaite gave a grave assent, and the principal, 
 still requiring to know more of the story, and finding that the chal- 
 lenge given by Foljambe was the consequence of the gratuitous an- 
 noyance of Ramshorn by hissing, he determined that the Tribune 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 19 
 
 had been guilty of a gross abuse of the liberty he advocaleci, and 
 deserved poonishment, which should certainly be inflicted, unless 
 he confessed himself in the wrong, made an apology, and promised 
 to keep the peace in future. 
 
 This the gallant Ramshorn positively refused, which called forth 
 all the energies, as well as ire, of the judge, who was proceeding 
 to corporal chastisement, which the Tribune even made a show of 
 resisting ; for he retired among the other boys, calling uj3on them 
 to join in defending him. 
 
 He however mistook his man, in supposing this would intimidate 
 the monarch. Crackenthorpe was a man of nerve, and though re- 
 markable for affability, and even a jollity of manner when unop- 
 posed, was a determined supporter of all lawful authority, more 
 especially his own. 
 
 Ramshorn's punishment, therefore, was only the more severe on 
 account of this additional crime, of an attempt at rebellion against 
 legitimate power. The insulted master seized him with a strong 
 hand ; and while his usher, Thornlhwaite, acted as a corps of ob- 
 servation in regard to the rest of the school, inflicted a powerful 
 castigation in blows and stripes, from which the culprit in vain en- 
 deavoured to escape. 
 
 Bursting with spleen, he was then confined to his room, and we 
 were all dismissed, appalled with what we had witnessed, and aw- 
 fully impressed with the veneration due to lawful authority, and 
 particularly to that of the schoolmaster of Sedbergh. 
 
 My reasoning powers were much busied by this scene, and 
 especially with what followed ; for Ramshorn, having contrived to 
 break prison, went home to his father, the innkeeper, who came 
 the next day with his attorney, Mr. Capias, to call the tyrant, as he 
 termed him, to account; threatened the vengeance of the law, and 
 insisted upon taking his boy from the school. 
 
 The attorney, not to be wanting on his part, began questioning 
 (or, Q as Crackenthorpe afterwards said, tc poornping" him), to know 
 whether he admitted, what he called, the gross assault which had 
 been perpetrated on the innocent boy ? 
 
 u l deny the perpetrating , and particularly deny the innocence," 
 said the master of birch and etymology, "but I admit flogging (he 
 young rebel, as I would both of you if you were my scholars, and 
 offended against the rules of my school. " 
 
 Mr. Crackenthorpe uttered this with what we thought astonish- 
 ing firmness, particularly when he added, " as for law, two can 
 play at that-,*for if the law does not support schoolmasters, it will 
 soon not support the king, and then there wiil be no law at all. 
 Then as to removing the boy, I am sorry to tell thee, it is not in 
 thy power, for I have myself already, not removed, but expelled 
 him< Mr. Thornlhwaite, reach me down the book of entries," 
 
DE CLIFFORD 
 
 At this he opened the ponderous record of the transactions, civil 
 and criminal, of the free school of Sedbergh, and showed, to the 
 indignation of the democratic Boniface, the following note, in ink 
 scarcely dry, against his son's name in the list of scholars : 
 
 " Propter contumaciam, et rebellionem contra scholae disciplinam— Expulsus." 
 
 At first the innkeeper stared, and not understanding Latin, won- 
 dered how a few unintelligible words, like magic, could prevent 
 him, as Crackenthorpe had said, from using the power of removing 
 his own boy from such thraldom; but, upon being informed that 
 he was expelled by the master's own act, and for rebellion against 
 his authority, he said it was a damned country, and not worth liv- 
 ing in, where any man, or body of men, had such power. He was 
 consoled, however, by Mr. Capias telling him that such palpable 
 tyranny, added to such a cruel assault, would greatly enhance the 
 damages in an action at law. This he ordered the said Capias forth- 
 with to commence, and they sullenly took their leave. 
 
 The result was, a verdict for the defendant at the next assizes, 
 the plaintiff being condemned to pay the costs, and another action 
 by Capias against his principal for not paying them. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MORE OF SCHOOL DAYS. — 'MY FRIENDSHIPS, PLEASURES, OCCUPATIONS, 
 
 Welcome hither, 
 If that the youth of my new interest here, 
 Have power to bid you welcome. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Mereh. of Venice. 
 
 The preceding incident was by far the most important hitherto 
 of my life, and set my thoughts at work in greater activity than ever. 
 
 I began to speculate on the nature of right and wrong; of govern- 
 ment and rebellion; of friendship, jealousy, envy, and hatred; in 
 short, I became as great a moral philosopher as any young gentle- 
 man of fifteen could be. 
 
 In this I was joined con amove by Hastings. The friendship 
 which had united us from taste had been drawn closer by this ad- 
 venture, and this in itself formed another object of inquiry for our 
 inquisitive minds, involving no less a question than the principles 
 of human nature, and the equality of mankind. For.Jhis Hastings 
 was a great stickler, notwithstanding his high lot, and his burst 
 against Ramshorn ; and when I observed upon the indignation he 
 had shown against that rebel, as incompatible with his principle, 
 lie justified himself by saying that he fought him for his imper- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 21 
 
 tinence, to which equality gave no right; that he was by nature 
 what he called a raff, and detestable on that account, but not for 
 his lower rank. 
 
 To these sentiments I deferred with admiration, and still more, 
 when upon my hinting a fear of interruption hereafter to our friend- 
 ship, from the difference of our situations, he assured me that 
 friendship depended upon similarity of feeling, not of fortune — the 
 thing was impossible. 
 
 Oh! how I loved him for this, and more than ever admired his 
 elegant aristocratic look of superiority, and as it were, of fashion 
 (though of that I then knew nothing), when accompanied and set 
 otf by such beautiful sentiments ! 
 
 Foljambe had, however, a most extraordinary warmth and vigour 
 in all his thoughts and conceptions, whatever they were, and whe- 
 ther in opinions, feelings, or conduct, could never be neutral. His 
 regard for me seemed a passion, especially after the attempt to 
 thwart it in the school, and he more than once said, that if ever he 
 came into possession of Bardolfe Castle, he would make it over to 
 me as one of its rightful heirs. Could I help loving him? 
 
 Our school discipline proceeded, and I hope I may say with 
 profit. The mightiest of schoolmasters or (as he loved to be called), 
 the Archi Didaskalos of Yorkshire, viewed our progress with 
 pleasure, and I must do him the justice to say, he was as willing as 
 able to promote it. 
 
 Being so young, our inquisitiveness about every thing, but parti- 
 cularly as to the operations of the mind, made him call us moral 
 philosophers in embryo ; and on me in particular, from a warm 
 eulogy I pronounced upon Socrates, in one of our themes, he be- 
 stowed the name of that illustrious person. This, whether from de- 
 rision or envy, was converted into a nickname, which stuck by me 
 at school, and followed me to college. 
 
 With all the drawbacks, however, which I have mentioned, 
 Sedbergh was to me a place of happiness, unequalled by any other 
 which afterwards cherished me. The acquisition, or at least the 
 foundation, of those stores for the mind, which education gives, and 
 which produce a proud equality, often a superiority, in him who 
 possesses them to the owners of millions without them 5 the cul- 
 tivation of a friendship, that balm of comfort to all, but especially 
 to a decayed gentleman/and which I was sure would last for ever 5 
 the hopes, the frolics, and even the carelessness of youth, which 
 never looks gloomily on futurity, and always possesses in idea 
 whatever it chooses to wish for; all these were enjoyments, not the 
 less felt, because perhaps, at the time, not well understood. 
 
 But there were others of a more distinct and commoner character 
 (and sadly, on that very account, undervalued), which it is still a 
 delight to me to remember. Yet are they what many fine, tl sough 
 
22 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 generally upstart, people might characterize as rude and vulgar. 
 The pleasure, however, which we take in them is nothing but 
 natural, for they are nature's pleasures. I mean such as arise from 
 our supposed ability to supply our own natural wants. 
 
 Hence my satisfaction in digging a few feet of earth, dignified 
 with the name of garden, and pleasing my imagination by its ele- 
 gance, or its actiral profit from culinary produce. 
 
 What delight I experienced from adding a bunch of radishes, or 
 a plate of mustard and cress of my own raising, to our coarse, but 
 well-relished supper! It realized what I had perhaps read in the 
 morning in my Virgil, of the old Corycian : — 
 
 " Regum aequabat opes animis, seraque revertens 
 Nocte domum, dapibus raensas onerabat inemptis ' ! " 
 
 Were the ambitious pursuits of the world that engaged me 
 , afterwards more happy ? I fear to answer. 
 
 That I may not however describe myself a mere hungry peasant, 
 alive only to bodily sense, let me mix a little sentiment with my 
 enjoyments — for sentimental I had become in no small degree. 
 
 My garden pleased me more from the gold and velvet, with which 
 nature (dear and elegant nature) clothed its crocus, its wall- 
 flower, and 
 
 " Polyanthus of unnumbered dyes, 
 The yellow wall-flower stained with iron brown," 
 
 than even the luxuries of the evening banquet. How little, I said 
 even then, do such pleasures depend upon ; how superior indeed are 
 they to all that wealth (of which however I had none to make the 
 comparison) can command! 
 
 With this garden I felt fully equal to my richer friend. My delight 
 was also in the heat of the day to lie, Horace in hand, at the foot of 
 a great elm, that stood before the school-house door, and with him, 
 proud of my classics, to exclaim, 
 
 " Libet jacere, modo sub antiqua ilice, 
 " Modo in tenaci gramine." 
 
 But on the approach of evening, happiness was perfect, when I 
 wandered down a romantic dell, listening to the call, not of earliest, 
 but latest birds, nestling for the night in the green and perfumed 
 hedges. There I always lingered, with I .know not what fantasies, 
 except that they were always pleasing, until I was lost in twilight, 
 and the school curfew summoned me to my own nest. 
 
 These simple scenes, and the reflections they prompted, all sooth- 
 
 1 How execrably translated by Dryden, though he was " glorious John." 
 
 ll For late returning home he slept at ease, 
 And wisely deemrd the wealth of monarchs less, 
 The little of his own, because his own did please." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 23 
 
 ing to a mind vividly sensible to the charms of nature, were de- 
 liriously enhanced by my now for the first lime meeting with the 
 " Minstrel." 
 
 O ! how I devoured its descriptions, particularly one stanza which 
 I thought ought to be written in gold— certainly, in my then frame 
 of mind, it was golden to me. 
 
 " Oh how canst thou renounce the boundless store, 
 Of charms which Nature to her yotary yields ; 
 
 The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 
 The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; 
 
 All that genial ray of morning gilds, 
 And all that echoes to the song of even, 
 
 All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, 
 And all the dread magnificence of heaven, 
 O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! " 
 
 Perhaps all this may be uninteresting to the bulk of those who 
 may open these memoirs 5 perhaps I may be laughed at — no matter, 
 let them laugh that win. 
 
 The impressions of this sort of poetry, combined with the habits 
 I have described, are almost as green as ever in my recollection, 
 though at the distance of nearly half a century. The ramage of the 
 birds is still in my ears, and still a feast to my memory, for the 
 world has scarcely deadened it, though the sense itself is gone. 
 
 But it is only in " the morn and liquid dew of youth" that we can 
 taste the true flavour of this ambrosial food. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. 
 
 O ! when my eyes did see Olivia first, 
 Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Twelfth Night. 
 
 Fair Excellence, if, as your form declares, 
 You are divine, be pleased to instruct me, 
 How you will be worshipt. 
 
 Dryden's Tempest. 
 
 The pleasures I have described were always shared by Hastings, 
 who seemed to enjoy them at least as much as myself 5 so that we 
 talked sentiment by the hour, upon the nothingness of ambition, 
 and the inanities of the world. Friendship, we both agreed, was the 
 only real good, and this we really enjoyed. 
 
 Judge then my grief, when his father having, as he thought, 
 sufficiently trained him in the simplicities of life, now held it 
 necessary to initiate him in the mysteries of that higher society to 
 
24 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 which he naturally belonged, and in which he was hereafter to 
 move. Foljambe therefore announced to me, with emotions cer- 
 tainly of regret, though not unmingled with satisfaction, that he 
 was to remove directly to Eton, his father's chariot and four having 
 in fact been sent for him ; and he leaped into it, as I thought, with 
 too much alacrity; though perhaps I thus felt, only because, while 
 he drove off in all the gaiety of hope and expectation, I was left at 
 Sedbergh, a solitary boor. 
 
 The contrast indeed between me, the son of a mere yeoman, or 
 if a gentleman, a decayed one, who knew not where he was to look 
 for fortune, and this young heir, who had the whole world before 
 him, and who had thus left me friendless behind, gave me a pang 
 which I did not soon recover. I moped, and sought out the darkest 
 corners, in which to hide tears which I actually shed, but of which 
 I am now ashamed ; for I am afraid they sprang from a double 
 motive ; one, far less worthy than the other. For though I certainly 
 grieved for the loss of my friend, the contrast I have mentioned, 
 between his brilliant prospect and my own, struck me with double 
 force. I railed at the inequalities of fortune, and (let me confess my 
 weakness) it made me almost repine, not only that I loo was not 
 destined to Eton, but that I could not also proceed there in a chariot 
 and four. — So much for Socrates! 
 
 I consoled myself, however, as all persons who are proud, but 
 whose fortune does not square with the good opinion they have of 
 themselves, generally do, with the assurance that if I was not as 
 rich and great as Foljambe, I deserved to be so, and that in truth 
 he had never given me reason to distrust that he thought so him- 
 self. Thus I long felt with delight the pressure of his hand in 
 mine when we parted, and his assurance that Eton, or new com- 
 panions, would never make him forget Sedbergh, or me, still dwelt 
 upon my ear. 
 
 Hastings had often asked why we should not go through the 
 world together, as we had through the school? talked warmly of 
 my coming to see him in vacation at Foljambe Park 5 and of our 
 meeting again at College, if I obtained (of which he had no doubt) 
 the exhibition at Queen's College, which was annexed to Sedbergh, 
 and which enabled the holder to pursue an Oxford education. 
 
 These were delightful dreams, and my love for Foljambe was 
 only increased by the thought how totally he was without the least 
 alloy of that pride which often makes unequal friendships so mi- 
 serable. 
 
 All this redoubled my exertion in study, as the only mode of 
 realizing a dream so charming. The days therefore passed on, 
 busily, if not happily 5 and the energy of the Iliad, and my keen 
 interest about its heroes, brought me rapidly on in Greek. 
 
 At the same time I made an advance (or something like it) of 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 25 
 
 another kind. For Mrs. Crackenthorpe, who added a prolific nature 
 to her other good qualities as a wife, had bestowed upon her hus- 
 band no less than four daughters, crimson as peonies, full of health 
 and buttermilk 5 and these buxom females, always flitting about 
 me, laid hold of my young imagination in a manner I did not 
 understand. They were homely enough, but still they were females, 
 and though not above sixteen, I began even at that age to think 
 of the other sex as beings far different from our own, in the respect 
 due to them, and the interest which in me, I knew not why, they 
 always created. 
 
 Yet in regard to these Misses Crackenthorpe, the feeling, though 
 it shewed me what I was made of, was not dangerous. Even at 
 that young age, though I liked a game of romps, in which a sort 
 of Galatea coquetry was very well understood between us', I felt 
 the want of something more symmetrical in form, something more 
 delicate in manner, than these female beefeaters exhibited. They 
 had all thick ankles, large feet, and red elbows, and though the 
 seeing them roll sometimes in the hayfield, which disclosed these 
 charms, was excellent amusement, they luckily proved antidotes 
 instead of attractions. 
 
 In short, I was no Spartan, and never could bear a grenadier in 
 petticoats. 
 
 I now went home for a vacation, but 1 was unluckily not too 
 happy at home. My fondness for books, and the remembrance of 
 Foljambe's friendship, did not add to its attractions. 1 loved my 
 plain father and mother, and I respected (perhaps sometimes en- 
 vied) the strong nerves and brawny limbs of my brothers. And to 
 do them justice, they did not seem to despise me, though I was 
 neither a farmer nor a sportsman; but 1 preferred the old castle 
 gardens, or the library of Sir Harry's Hall house, which were still 
 open to me, to inspecting a mow, or attending a market. 
 
 My brothers generally honoured me with the sobriquet of 4 4 t'young 
 doctor V But as this was the extent of their disparagement and their 
 wit, I consoled myself with looking forward to the return of my 
 friend from Eton, and the promised summons, consequent thereon, 
 to Foljambe Park. 
 
 In this I was for a long time bitterly disappointed. The vacations 
 of Eton and Sedbergh seldom tallied 5 so that though I twice re- 
 ceived the longed-for invitation, the interdictions of my father and 
 Crackenthorpe prevented my accepting it. During the whole of one 
 Christmas, when we were both at home, I was made prisoner by 
 illness, and during another, Foljambe himself was absent in London. 
 Thus, I had entirely finished my school course, and was on the eve 
 
 1 Malo ine petit Galatea lasciva puella. 
 
 3 A provincial contraction in Yorkshire for " the young." 
 
 4 
 
26 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 of my eighteenth birthday, before such an arrangement could be 
 made as permitted me to enjoy this long-expected visit. 
 
 Meantime I had obtained the exhibition for which I was a can- 
 didate, and which, eked out by a small allowance which my father 
 was able to make, was to send me on the foundation to Queen's 
 College, at Oxford, a consummation for which I was devoutly pre- 
 paring, when the long-delayed summons to pass a few days with 
 Hastings at his father's arrived, and was eagerly accepted. I say 
 eagerly, because, inexperienced as I was as to manners, or a way 
 of life different from that I was accustomed to at home, or at best 
 at the Hall Place, I was not in the least uneasy at the thought of 
 presenting myself to my friend's family, superior as I knew them 
 to be. Behold me, therefore, with a heart beating high with happy 
 expectation, ©n the road to the promised land. 
 
 On my arrival, I found my friend waiting for me before some 
 great gates, which seemed to belong to a fortified town, rather 
 than a park, and led through an avenue of half-a-mile to his pater- 
 nal mansion. He was glad to see me, though he was quieter in his 
 demonstrations of it than I had expected, and a great deal quieter than 
 myself. For I leaped into his arms, and embraced him with fervour, 
 nay, even with tears. 
 
 This rather surprised him, for we had both advanced compara- 
 tively towards manhood since we parted, and I question if my 
 friend, who had also been emancipated from Eton, thought he had 
 any farther advance to make to complete his title to the toga virilis. 
 He returned the embrace, but shed no tears — he had, as I thought, 
 loo much self-possession, and talked rather quizzingly of my York- 
 shire heartiness. 
 
 This, however, a more fashionable coat, and what I supposed a 
 more fashionable, that is, rather a less natural, manner than had 
 belonged to him in the wilds of Sedbergh, were the only differences 
 which Eton and absence seemed to have produced. In all other re- 
 spects, he appeared the same warm, friendly fellow he had been , 
 and in the eagerness of our mutual inquiries, and the joy of meet- 
 ing again, we forgot, if either had remembered, the difference in 
 lot which subsisted between the squire's and the decayed gentle- 
 man's son. 
 
 I have, however, more reasons for remembering this epoch. In 
 proceeding up the avenue, something sped towards us which at 
 first I took for a young fawn, so swift was its motion, so graceful 
 its bound. It appeared of the air, for it seemed not earthly. What 
 was my surprise, when, advancing nearer, I plainly observed it was 
 a young human being, for it had a human form, and a face dazzling 
 with animation : and yet not human either ; for it was more like 
 one of the fairies I had read of, and if so, surely of fairies the queen 
 herself. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 17 
 
 Foljambe, seeing my surprise, said, 44 It is my sister Bertha : 
 she has not seen me to-day, and is impatient to join me. I dare say 
 she has played Iruant from her governess to do so." 
 
 By this lime the graceful girl, in all the bloom and vivacity of 
 sweet sixteen, had come up to us, and playfully reproached Fol- 
 jambe for going out without as usual coming to see her. Her play- 
 fulness, however, fled when I was presented to her 5 and the neces- 
 sity for the artificial ceremonial she had been taught on the salutation 
 of a stranger seemed to put her natural frankness to flight-, she was 
 seized with timidity 5 curtesied, hesitated, and blushed. That blush, 
 however, spoke, though her voice had stopt-, yet, in the few words 
 she had uttered, that voice was so silvery sweet as to affect me 
 with I knew not what sensations of pleasure, for I knew not why I 
 was so pleased. All that I was certain of was, that it was a voice 
 more sweet than I had ever heard before (and certainly than I ever 
 heard afterwards, except from her) — so that I was almost about to 
 exclaim, 
 
 **• O, lady ! speak again." 
 
 But the blush spoke too} and I could translate it, though new lo 
 the language of blushes. It seemed to say, among other things, 
 "And is this your friend?" and then I thought I was an object of 
 curiosity, and wished lo appear to advantage to my friend's sister, 
 but did not know how — and then I blushed in my turn, yet did not 
 know why — only I was sure that I had never seen such a blush, and 
 would have given the world to have had such a sister. 
 
 I was very fond of Dryden's Tempest, and a favourite passage 
 rushed into my mind, personified as I felt by this beautiful Yision — 
 
 " At first it stared upon me and seem'd wild, 
 And then I trembled; yet it looked so lovely, 
 That when I would have fled away, my feet 
 Seem'd fasten'd to the ground." 
 
 This never happened to me with the Misses Crackenlhorpe, nor 
 even with the Misses Goff, nor could I then analyze the difference ; 
 but I felt it in my heart — where, truth to say, it remained ever 
 afterwards. 
 
 We now advanced to the house, which had an imposing look of 
 opulence and substantial grandeur 5 and this, and the grace and 
 beauty of the young fairy, made my mind dart with sensible mor- 
 tification to my own parental home, and my own personal insigni- 
 ficance. 
 
 That this should be inspired by a fine house and park, and a sort 
 of consequent reverence for the owner, was not surprising. What 
 did surprise me was, that not one-half, nay not a tenth part, of my 
 fear or mortification arose from this, but from a feeling totally new, 
 springing from the sudden comparison of myself with this daughter 
 of rank and fortune, whom I had just seen. 
 
28 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 That her loveliness should make me love her, I could understand 5 
 but why I should feel the complex sensations of awe, humility, and 
 despair, which so instantly got possession of me, was at the lime 
 totally inexplicable. 
 
 I accounted for it, Heaven knows, well enough afterwards, 
 when, to my cost, I got belter acquainted with the nature of love, 
 pride, ambition, and independence, all struggling together ; but 
 this was the result of riper years. What now puzzled me was the 
 influence which this wild young beauty, high as she was above me, 
 could have acquired in such an instant, so as to make me feel 
 bashful, helpless, and humbled, and all, as I thought, without a cause. 
 
 But to return — my friend Foljambe, still accompanied by his 
 sister, conducted me across a large hall, into a large room, where 
 a large and very noble looking man sat in a large arm-chair of 
 crimson velvet. 
 
 " Father," said Foljambe, with a sort of flippancy, which my 
 jealousy did not like, because I attributed it to Eton, " this is my 
 friend Clifford : I assure you, though he looks so bashful and back- 
 ward, there is a great deal in him." 
 
 "Of course," said Mr. Hastings, "as he was your friend at 
 Sedbergh. Pie has at least an honourable name 5 though that per- 
 haps is little recommendation in these days. I believe, young Sir 
 (that is, my son tells me), you descend from the old Lords Bardolfe, 
 as well as the Cliffords, for whom I ought myself to feel an interest, 
 from being an unworthy successor to part of their domains. Though 
 the domains have been lost, I hope you don't undervalue descent, 
 as it is becoming a fashion to do. Possibly, indeed, it will be of little 
 use to you in the world ; and yet I don't know " 
 
 At this he fell into a sort of musing, while I was absorbed with 
 what seemed an interest taken by his daughter in this introductory 
 speech. For she watched her father with peculiar attention while 
 he made it, and during his reverie afterwards. Of this reverie, at 
 the lime, I knew not the cause, and even when I did, did not per- 
 haps well understand it ; for I knew nothing of English aristocrats 
 or democrats, though my school books had already taught me the 
 difference between them among the ancients ; and certainly I soon 
 found that the awful master of Foljambe Park, though, from pe- 
 culiar views, he had mixed the hardihood of a plebeian with an 
 aristocratic education for his son, was, in his principles, certainly 
 no democrat. 
 
 He was, as I have before stated, of the old school, and he was so 
 in dress, and address. As to the first, it was so different from any 
 I had hitherto seen, that it made an impression, as indeed every 
 thing about and belonging to him did, upon one so total a stranger 
 to his higher lot. I remember even his coat, which had a very low 
 collar, was of a light stone colour 5 sioglc-breasled, and very plain ; 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 29 
 
 but its plainness was relieved by a most magnificent waistcoat of 
 crimson velvet, with gold button-boles, denoting, as I thought, 
 uncommon grandeur. Its pockets reached nearly to his knees, 
 large and roomy, and out of them he ever and anon conveyed, and 
 returned to them again, a ponderous gold chased snuff-box, of large 
 dimensions. This seemed the perpetual employment of his slender 
 hands, whose whiteness and delicacy shewed how little they had 
 ever been exposed even to the sun, much less to toil. 
 
 A small head, with a keen blue eye, and bushy eyebrows, gave 
 him a penetrating, or at least a pensive, look, and a black solitaire, 
 and little bag, or rather rosette, in which he confined his grey hair, 
 completed the outward man. , 
 
 When he rose from his chair, which he did, with a sort of con- 
 descending politeness, I perceived that his figure was tall, com- 
 manding, and well proportioned. Upon the whole, he had an 
 imposing and dignified air. How much of this was owing to my 
 consciousness of his superior station, how much to his personal 
 merits, I did not discover, for I was too much dazzled with the first 
 real man of quality I had ever seen to think of inquiring. 
 
 He was engaged, on our entering, in a conversation, which was 
 afterwards resumed, and what I heard, I did not fail, because suf- 
 ficiently characteristic, to remark and remember. It was with a 
 gentleman, who, though the clergyman of the parish, rather sur- 
 prised me by the obsequiousness he shewed; for it was very unlike 
 the manner of our own curate, who always, on his visits to us, 
 seemed at his ease,* and as perfectly at home as one of ourselves. 
 
 This gentleman, the Reverend Mr. Darling, was giving an ac- 
 count of a splendid ball and supper, given by a Mr. Wilkins, one of 
 the nouveaux riches, who had lately settled in a fine modern 
 house in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " Were there many of the old families?" asked Mr. Hastings. 
 " All but your own," replied the minister, with a bow; " there 
 were Lord Conyers, the Dowager Lady Belfont, and all her young 
 ladies." 
 
 " Very extraordinary," observed Mr. Hastings, handling his 
 snuff-box with something like agitation. " Why, they tell me all 
 this fortune was made by usury, and inveigling young heirs at sixty 
 per cent. 5 so that they have christened his fine house Annuity Hall. 
 They say, too, that the foundation even of this arose out of specu- 
 lations in tallow. What astonishes me is, that he is already in the 
 Commission, and they even talk of him as a Deputy Lieutenant. 
 What shall we come to if this goes on ? I trust, however, the gentry 
 of Yorkshire are not yet so reduced." 
 
 He said this with some bitterness, and an increased gravity of 
 look; while Mr. Darling replied with a titter, only repressed by 
 the presence he was in, which made him afraid to venture a joke, 
 
30 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 44 There certainly was no (allow at Mount WiSkins, for such a pro- 
 fusion of wax candles I never saw." 
 
 44 1 am really sorry, 1 ' returned the high squire. 44 What all this 
 deference for mere wealth, no matter how got, may lead to in 
 society, I don't know. An honest citizen, enriched by successful 
 industry, one might respect, but what are we to say when a dealer 
 in tallow and usury is not disdained by such a name as Lord Conyers, 
 or such a noble person as Lady Belfont?" 
 
 44 Lady Belfont, 1 ' said Mr. Darling, again smiling, 44 has six 
 daughters, some of them waxing old • Mount Wilkins is a fine place, 
 and Mr. Wilkins himself, though so rich, is scarcely yet past his 
 meridian." 
 
 " If that is the reason," returned Mr. Hastings, with sternness, 
 44 so much the worse 5" and he again had recourse to his box, and 
 became indeed so thoughtful, that Mr. Darling, with great defer- 
 ence, took his leave. 
 
 What had passed only increased my humility before this (to me) 
 august person. It is certain that I never before thought myself in 
 so awful a presence, or so strongly felt the rush of emotions of dif- 
 ferent kinds which filled my heart. The modern grandee, before 
 whom I stood, by his gravity of look, and the sort of solemnity of 
 voice in which he uttered his sentences, created in me a respect so 
 profound, that 1 scarcely ventured to look up ; but the animated 
 sylph who stood beside him threw such expression into a com- 
 plexion of breathing roses, and eyes which seemed absolutely to 
 laugh, that fear would have been lost in reciprocal buoyancy and 
 gladness, had her father been away, or had I been any other than 
 the humble creature I felt myself. 
 
 I never thought of my inferiority of lot to any one before; I 
 had not been dazzled by Sir Harry, or his ladies, or their Hall 
 house, though also a fine place. What did impress me, was the 
 long, long distance which seemed to intervene between my condi- 
 tion and that of the family I was now in, and especially of the 
 lovely creature who had so instantly won me. 
 
 All this was far different from the Goffs. In Ihem, though rich 
 enough, I saw little of what I thought personal superiority ; but in 
 Mr. Hastings, though without a title, I beheld a man who boasted, 
 or at least felt, that he had blood in his veins equal to the highest 
 and most ancient in the kingdom. Thai blood was in itself a source 
 of elevation equal to the most splendid title that could be conferred 
 upon him. He cared not for honours, and had notions of his own 
 concerning them; for he was fond of the saying, that though the 
 king could make a duke, he could not make a gentleman. 
 
 It was hence that, intrenched in his family seat, from which he 
 seldom stirred, and always substituting George III. for Elizabeth, 
 he thought 41 the old courtier of the queen" (allowing a little for 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 3* 
 
 the difference of manners) a model character for an English country 
 gentleman. Hence the plan I have noticed for the early education 
 of his son $ and hence, too, his aversion to those of his neighbours 
 who lived at such places as Mount Wilkins, and whom he con- 
 temptuously called the nouveaux riches. 
 
 In one respect, however, although Mr. Hastings was any thing 
 but belonging to these as a class, he did not disdain to owe much of 
 his fortune to the same sources of wealth as theirs 5 for it was derived 
 from a wealthy ancestor, who, in the time of Charles II., held a 
 proprietory government in one of the colonies, and had invested 
 successfully immense sums in plantations in Barbadoes. These, 
 however, were all managed by agents; he seemed to have nothing 
 to do with them except to receive their proceeds, which he did to 
 a very considerable amount, and hence the grandeur that surrounded 
 him, for the estate of Foljambe, after abstracting the house and 
 park, was by no means large. 
 
 With all his grandeur, however, and though he gave way to it, 
 he was a man, as I afterwards found, deeply imbued with religion, 
 at least according to his own notion of it 5 and though towards his 
 fellow-creatures he was sufficiently distant, before his God he was 
 the humblest of men, and so impressed with the final justice of 
 Providence, that he was full of fears lest the prosperity he enjoyed 
 in his fortune and his children, and the pride he took in both, 
 should be one day severely visited. No more, he would say, than 
 he should deserve. Thus, by what seems an inconsistency in his cha- 
 racter, his happiness was by no means without alloy. 
 
 It may be supposed that this knowledge of Mr. Hastings arose 
 from after discoveries of mine, and could not be discerned on a 
 first acquaintance by a youth of eighteen. Nevertheless, I was suf- 
 ficiently struck with the difference between his real and high gen- 
 tility, and the common demeanour to which I had been accustomed 5 
 and when he shook my hand, and said, he was giad to see his son's 
 favourite friend and schoolfellow, and not the less for being a Clifford 
 and a Bardolfe, who were of the true old nobility, I own I felt a 
 timidity mixed with elation at this, which I had never experienced 
 before Sir Harry or Crackenthorpe,*— the only great men I had ever 
 yet encountered. 
 
 This feeling was, however, mingled with another of a pleasanler 
 nature; for the graceful girl, who had so dazzled me when greeting 
 her brother, had laid hold of her father's hand, and under that pro- 
 tection seemed not unwilling to meet my eye, while her's surveyed 
 me with a modest freedom which she had not hitherto ventured 
 upon 5 and when her father pronounced the words "his son's fa- 
 vourite friend, and a Clifford and a Bardolfe," she seemed pleased, 
 and proved it with a smile, the radiancy of which, through ten 
 
32 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 thousand vicissitudes which have happened since, has dwelt in my 
 memory with unremitting intenseness, 
 
 What forcibly struck me was, the fond deference and attachment 
 combined which Bertha shewed to her father, for every kind word 
 he spoke, and every approving smile he gave her 5 which were not 
 a few, for she seemed his darling. Indeed, with all his reserve of 
 manner to every one else, his children seemed both of them the 
 prime objects of his interest, in shewing which he was pleasingly 
 tender and confiding. 
 
 Still I was miserably conscious of my inferiority to the whole 
 family, but particularly when I looked at the elegance as well as 
 bloom of Bertha. Bloom I had seen, but never that fascination of 
 manner, which, though I had been hitherto a stranger to it, seemed 
 in her no more than natural, and to have been born with her. 
 This was all heightened by the evident superiority of everything 
 that surrounded her. 
 
 Had she been a farmer's daughter, or even Sir Harry's, I might 
 have been at my ease, or at least have indulged in fearless admira- 
 tion. But here that admiration was at once accompanied by a sense 
 of despair, as astonishing as it was unaccountable. 
 
 I looked at her as a being of higher order, such as was unap- 
 proachable by me, or at least such as I never dared approach. All 
 about her— her aspect, her ease, and even her attire, light, airy, 
 and elegant — attracted me in a manner I cannot describe. Surely 
 in simple and natural elegance Bertha excelled all others of her 
 delightful age and sex, and it formed, of her outward appearance, 
 the most engaging charm. 
 
 But, as I have said, all about her conspired to fill me with hu- 
 mility as well as interest. Even the furniture of the room (at which, 
 that she seemed so much at home with it, I was booby enough to 
 be surprised), its ornaments, gilding, musical instruments, and 
 family pictures, seemed to bespeak a greatness, and consequence, 
 such as I had no business with. There was palpably a distance 
 between us, which, come what might, I felt could never be sur- 
 mounted. 
 
 But if these were the feelings occasioned by the comparison of 
 myself with the daughter of an untitled though rich and high-born 
 English gentleman, how were they heightened, when I acciden- 
 tally discovered that Bertha's maternal descent was still more illus- 
 trious than her paternal. 1 say accidentally, because it arose from 
 a few words casually dropt by her maid, Mrs. Margaret, who 
 thought fit to tell me sometimes I was a nice gentleman, and to do 
 the honours of particular parts of the place, which she might find 
 me admiring alone. A summer-house in the garden was one of 
 these, over the portico of which I was struck with two coats of 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 33 
 
 arms in marble, on two shields joined together, seemingly of fifty 
 quarlerings each 5 but, surmounting one of them, my attention 
 was most arrested by a crown — a foreign one indeed, but still a 
 crown. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mrs. Margaret, "I see you don't know what that 
 is 5 but these are the family arms 5 that on the left is master's, and 
 they say he comes from the old kings of England 5 but that on the 
 right, with a crown upon it, was my lady's, because in Germany 
 the princesses wear crowns." 
 
 " Was your late lady then a princess?" asked I, in astonishment. 
 
 "What, did you not know that?" asked Mrs. Margaret. "I 
 thought Mr. Charles must have told you all about that." 
 
 " And pray, of what family ? " 
 
 " Why I can hardly tell it, the word is so hard, but it is some- 
 thing about sacks and ice, as they tell me, and they say the prin- 
 cess, my lady, was a relation of a great many kings and queens." 
 
 Shall I own, this surprising intelligence gave me no pleasure, 
 for it only increased the awe I already felt, in too great a degree 
 for my comfort, for Bertha and her relations. I wished to ask Fol- 
 jambe to explain it to me, but as he had never mentioned the sub- 
 ject, I did not dare, till a second visit to the summer-house, and 
 the sight of the arms in his company brought it on. Being herald 
 enough, from only old Doughty's instructions, to make the obser- 
 vation, I said to him, without alluding to Margaret's information, 
 
 " I see that, great as your family is, you have had alliances with 
 still greater rank, for the arms and the crown in that second shield 
 denote something, if not royal, at least very near it." 
 
 " Did you not know," said he, " that my mother claimed to be 
 a princess of the empire, from being one of the Ducal House of 
 Saxe Eisenach?" 
 
 This at once solved Mrs. Margaret's difficulty about sacks and 
 ice, but I still held my peace as to her information, and Foljambe 
 went on 5 
 
 " To be sure she was a confounded poor one; her grandfather, 
 though a sovereign, being only a general officer, receiving pay in 
 the service of Prussia. My father met her at Berlin, when on his 
 travels : they fell in love with each other, and he offered. But 
 though she had not a stiver, and he was rich and in full possession, 
 her father the prince, as he was called, would not listen to it, till 
 mine proved that he came from the Planlagenels, and bore forty- 
 eight quarlerings — three limes as many as the prince required." 
 
 " Did you know your mother?" asked I. 
 
 u Not much, for she died when I was ten years old 5 but she was 
 very handsome, and very proud, and often told me and Bertha to 
 remember that we had kings and emperors for our ancestors, in 
 Germany. The Vatcr land, I should observe (I suppose on (hat 
 I. 3 
 
34 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 account), was aiways preferred to England in her estimation. How- 
 ever, let me not disparage her highness, for she loved my father, 
 and made him very happy, as well as her very humble servant ; for 
 it is astonishing, they say, what an influence she had over him, 
 making him do whatever she pleased ; — for the governor is a good, 
 high-minded fellow, but the will of this scion of a sovereign house 
 was to him always law." 
 
 Here our conversation ended, and it left me only in a worse plight 
 than ever in regard to my feeling of inferiority, to which I was so 
 much alive. 
 
 The flourishing descendants, though remote, of the Plantagenets, 
 were far too high for a decayed gentleman to think of as friends 5 
 but how was the distance increased by their being only one genera- 
 tion from a duke and reigning sovereign ! 
 
 In truth, the discovery, though with no very definite reason for 
 it, filled me with dismay. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MY GRIEF AT QUITTING FOLJAMBE PARK. 
 
 Here, from Verona, art thou banished. 
 Be patient, for the world is broad and wide, 
 ****** 
 
 There is no world without Verona's walls. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Rom. and Juliet. 
 
 Let better casuists explain, if they can, how all I have related 
 could spring up in the mind of a lad so young, wholly new to life, 
 and whose companions had been comparatively clowns. 
 
 But so it was ; though dazzled and delighted with the lovely vision 
 of Bertha, my feeling was that of distress, to think how out of my 
 place I was in suffering myself to contemplate it. I thought I could 
 have died for her 5 and if she would command me tasks, could have 
 gone to the world's end toexecute them. Inshort, I feltlike Miranda,— 
 
 " To be your fellow 
 You may deny me; but I'll be your servant 
 Whether you will or no." 
 
 The event was, as I dare say the reader has anticipated ; I dis- 
 covered that I had a heart, and lost it in the moment of the disco- 
 very. It, however, had an effect upon me afterwards, which I ought 
 to record. 
 
 Far from wearing out, these first impressions only gained strength, 
 as I grew more acquainted with Bertha, and the surprise at my new 
 situation diminished. The grave deportment of her father, indeed. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 35 
 
 did not much relax, and at first I thought he had put some con- 
 straint upon himself, in giving suchopportunity for an increase of 
 intimacy between his son and a person so much below him 5 and yet 
 the respect he always expressed, at least for my name, consoled me. 
 
 The history of our broken family was the better known to Mr. 
 Hastings, from the circumstance of his own having been long the 
 possessors of this ancient castle and demesne, which made him study 
 their former lives. He knew more about them than even old 
 Doughfy, and once told me, with great complacency, that my an- 
 cestor John, third Lord Bardolfe, had been a most distinguished 
 soldier, and even knight banneret under the chivalrous Edward III. 
 I observed, or thought I did, that upon these occasions his daughter 
 seemed not without a participation of the interest which her father 
 took in the subject. 
 
 These little incidents sometimes re-assured me in respect to Mr. 
 Hastings, whom I began to like as well as to fear • but my natural 
 jealousy was not without alarm in regard to his son. Not that he 
 was so much the enthusiast of pedigree as of more modern feelings, 
 in his impressions regarding high stations, fashion, and title, in 
 which he did not resemble his father, whose pride seemed confined 
 to the pride of birth. 
 
 It is cerlain that the great burst of feeling while at Sedbergh, 
 which I have recorded, relative to the equality of mankind, and the 
 perfect indifference as to situation which ought to prevail between 
 friends, seemed somewhat to have evaporated in the atmosphere of 
 Eton 5 and, though I observed no change in his treatment, yet it 
 was evident that he had not resided two or three years in that 
 courtly place for nothing. The notice taken of the scholars by the 
 king had not been lost upon him, and the friends he had made 
 there were very different in degree from his companions in North 
 Yorkshire. The Marquis of Albany, and Sir Harry Melford, of 
 whom he was fond of talking, were any thing but the sons of de- 
 cayed gentlemen. 
 
 I watched this, as I have said, with something like jealousy 5 but 
 as I was his only companion, and he was both cheerful and naturally 
 open, even jealousy had no fault to find 5 so that my love for him 
 continued to indulge itself unrestrained, spite of a little quizzing, 
 when growing, as he said I was, sentimental. 
 
 But Bertha, ever cheerful, ever animated, with a countenance all 
 radiance, and a tongue all nature, seemed not to have a thought to 
 conceal. Completely unsophisticated, she admitted me frankly as a 
 sharer with her brother in all her occupations, whether grave or 
 gay, of study, or diversion. I was allowed to ride, read, and walk 
 with her, to hear her play and sing, to tell her stories, and listen to 
 hers in return. 
 
 But it was Shakspeare that most promoted our intimacy. I had 
 
36 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 been fixed by his historical plays, even in my infancy, probably 
 from the interest I took in Lord Bardolfe, Clifford, and York and 
 Lancaster; and this had produced an admiration and love for his 
 other wonder-moving works ; so that, for my age, I was tolerably 
 proficient in them, not to say enthusiastic. What joy to me, to see 
 the young mind of Berlha tinged with the same taste, as I was al- 
 lowed, nay, sometimes called upon, by Mr. Hastings himself, to 
 read some of his favourite dramas aloud. 
 
 All these to hear, would gentle Bertha seriously incline. But 
 reading was by no means her only pleasure. She had a little garden, 
 not "merely of flowers, but of the prettiest pot-herbs, scarlet-beans, 
 and the like, which she was proud to present to her father at table, 
 as the product of her own labour. And very pleasing was it to me, 
 to observe her pleasure in such natural tastes, and how playfully 
 she would quote a letter of Gray to one of his friends : u And so 
 you have a garding of your own, and plant and transplant, and are 
 dirty and amused. Dear ! how charming it must be, to walk out in 
 one's own garding, and sit on a bench in the open air. Have a care 
 of sore throats, though ; and the agoo '." 
 
 I was proud to be allowed to share the labour of this garden, and 
 to dig, while she raked, or sowed seeds. To be sure, I did not think 
 of Adam and Eve ! 
 
 But my pleasure was not confined to this. Think of my increased 
 and well-founded admiration at finding the mind of this lovely being, 
 though so young, fraught, from nature alone, with what the best 
 education sometimes fails to inspire — a taste in elegant literature, 
 for example. Yet although she had a well-accomplished governess 
 for the ornamental parts of instruction, she had been almost left 
 to herself, and her mere feelings had led her to take pleasure in 
 those parts of poetry which most strike a well-cultivated taste. 
 
 I was led to observe this by being shewn one day, by Foljambe 
 himself, a sort of essay she had voluntarily composed on the Pleasures 
 of a Garden, in which, after many natural sentiments, prompted by 
 the subject, she wound up an account of flowers with one of the 
 most pleasing passages in the Lycidas. 
 
 " Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, 
 That shrank thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, 
 And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
 Their bells and flowrets of a thousand hues. 
 Ye vallies low, where the wild whispers use 
 Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
 On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks ; 
 Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, 
 That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 
 And purple all the ground with vernal flowers ; 
 Bring the rath pn'mose, that forsaken dies, 
 
 ' Gray lo Nichols. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 37 
 
 The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, 
 
 The white pink, and the pansy freakt with jet, 
 
 The glowing violet, 
 
 The musk rose, and the well-attired woodbine, 
 With cowslips wan that hang their pensive head." 
 
 To this extract was appended this note : "My dear father has 
 promised me a diamond necklace when I am presented — whoever 
 has these needs no diamonds." 
 
 64 What a little blockhead ! " said her brother, when we read it. I 
 did not think so. 
 
 But with all this soflness in her tastes, she had all the playful 
 cheerfulness of her age. 
 
 It was one of her amusements to teach French to Charles and me 5 
 and when she scolded us, as she often did for our bad accent, she 
 did it so pleasingly, and looked so arch, that I often made blunders 
 on purpose to be so corrected. 
 
 It was the same with dancing, a master in which came oyer 
 twice a week from York, and we were allowed lo witness and even 
 join in the exercise. But here she gave me the palm over her 
 brother, who was totally without ear for music, in which to me na- 
 ture had been bountiful 5 so that the French lady, who acted the part 
 of governess, said, that 44 pour la danse, le jeune Monsieur avait les 
 meilleures dispositions du monde." 
 
 Of her feelings, however, or whether she had any towards me, 
 I was ignorant. At least I observed nothing in her that bespoke 
 interests not common lo one of her age; gentle and complaisant to 
 every body, but loo easy lo indicate any thing like interest for her 
 new visitor. 
 
 Still in my secret heart, I felt, through every vein of it, a desire 
 to please, and obtain her attention, if not something more. Thus, 
 to be her friend at present, became, I thought, my only wish 5 as 
 to be hereafter, by some turn of fortune, something better, was my 
 only ambilion. 
 
 O ! how sweetly do youth and hope deceive us, and how happy 
 are we to be so deceived ! 
 
 But an end was too soon put to this happiness 5 for Foljambe, 
 who had finished with Eton, as I had nearly with Sedbergh, was 
 summoned to be matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, whither I 
 was to follow him in a few months, with my exhibition to Queen's. 
 
 We were all a little sad at the prospect of parting, and Bertha'^ 
 beautiful smile was gone. It was exchanged for a gravily which 
 was marked, and yet it became her, or was at least quite as touch- 
 ing, perhaps more so, than the smile itself. Serious or laughing^ 
 her features spoke. When mirthful, her eyes ran over wilh joy ; 
 when pensive, with feeling. In fact, they were eyes that could, and 
 1 thought often did, utter " a thousand nameless lender things. 1 ' 
 
38 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 Well ; for two days before the visit expired, she was grave, nay, 
 very grave. She no longer bounded like a fawn, but absolutely 
 walked, musing and slow, " a pensive nun devout and pure." 
 
 Shall I own my self-flattery? (I am quite sure it was not va- 
 nity, for I was too sincerely humble to feel that)-, " I thought, 
 but it might not be so," that I had some share in the change. 
 
 Fool! coxcomb! madman ! I forgot that she was about to lose 
 her brother, and I was rightly punished. Yet when, with a sup- 
 pressed sigh, and an eye almost in tears, she said to that brother, 
 u I don't know what we shall do when you are all gone," I could 
 not help saying to myself that all certainly meant more than one. 
 
 But this was by no means the whole. The day before our depar- 
 ture, judge my surprise, my joy, when, escorted by Mademoiselle 
 La Porte, her French governess, she entered the room where 
 Charles and I usually sat, bearing a beautiful little volume of the 
 French poet Gresset in her hand, saying, with a smile, that she 
 had her father's, Mr. Hastings's, permission to present it to me, 
 as a reward for my industry in French. It was richly bound, and 
 with some archness she said, "Mind, it is only as an encourage- 
 ment to you to read it 5 — but if it also puts you in mind of your 
 teachers, Mademoiselle, and me, so much the belter." 
 
 " C'est bien dit , la chere enfant," said Mademoiselle La Porte ; 
 
 et'pour le jeune Monsieur, avec le frangais, le sentiment et la 
 danse, il sera bient6t un heros de roman." 
 
 This u fooled me to the lop of my bent," especially as Bertha 
 smiled as if she assented; and, like the sentimental blockhead that 
 I was, I gave myself (that is, in secret) the airs of a real lover; I 
 vowed eternal constancy, and left Foljambe Park with far different 
 notions, both of persons and things, from those with which I en- 
 tered it. 
 
 The adieus of the family who had been so kind to me, were of 
 a mixed character. Mr. Hastings was stately 5 not cold, but too 
 evidently condescending, though intending to be kind. His son 
 was careless and too full of Christ Church. But Bertha was frank 
 and lovelier than ever. 
 
 Certainly the pressure of her finger, which I was allowed to 
 touch at parting, thrilled through my veins; and I absolutely 
 thought I heard the tongue of heaven, when, though in the stillest 
 possible voice, she said, " I hope when Charles returns you will 
 come again." 
 
 What wonder then if I left them with mixed and confused emo- 
 tions of misery and joy, which my young philosophy could not 
 analyse. All that I was certain of was, as I walked with a servant 
 bearing my bag to the place where the coach was to lake me up, 
 that my heart had a weight upon it like a load of lead, and the 
 great gates at the end of the avenue closed upon me with a creaking 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 39 
 
 noise which I thought unusual to them. They sounded horrors, 
 and J could not help calling to mind the pathetic lamentation of 
 Eve, on her banishment from the abode of her happiness. 
 
 " Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave 
 Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, 
 Fit haunt of Gods ? 
 
 How shall I part, and whither wander down 
 Into a lower world, to this obscure 
 And wild. How shall we breathe in other air 
 Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits." 
 
 In the journey home, I passed in review every thing that had 
 so pleasingly, yet so tormentingly, absorbed me, and allowed my 
 mind to become a tumult of the happiest as well as the most des- 
 pairing recollections. And yet (mark it ye young!), such is the 
 irrepressible buoyancy of youth (ah ! how far beyond all that the 
 world can give without it!), that my despair was not without alle- 
 viation. I was not in those regions of sorrow 
 
 " Where peace 
 And rest can never dwell, hope never comes, 
 That comes to all." 
 
 No ! amid my darkest gloom at leaving what I thought paradise, 
 I could not part with the delight of thinking I might one day 
 return to it, and a gleam of Bertha dressed in smiles, would some- 
 times dissipate all the black signs of hopelessness that otherwise 
 surrounded me. 
 
 Thus, though sunk in grief, and often in despair, to think that I 
 had no right to expect to see Bertha again, or, if I did, that it 
 would only be as the wife of some higher and happier being, the 
 coach could not pass a cottage in a retired nook, with a garden of 
 neatness like her own, but I peopled it in imagination with all 
 that my fond fancy could indulge • in fact, with nothing short of 
 what my wishes coveted, and my heart promised. That I might 
 one day live in such a spot, in holy union with my beloved and 
 latest found, was the raving of eighteen; but 1 felt myself a man, 
 and as my object is to paint nature as she is actually seen and felt, 
 I will not be deterred from confessing these weaknesses. 
 
 I recollect, indeed, the observation of a celebrated French pre- 
 late 1 " It is so far from dangerous, that it is even right, for young 
 people to be made acquainted with love, in order that they may 
 shut their senses against it when criminal, and know how to act 
 when innocent and honourable." 
 
 I will not, therefore, fear the ridicule which may attend this 
 account of myself, nor am I ashamed of having so early entertained 
 a passion which, under all disadvantages, and ten thousand anxieties 
 and temptations, kept my mind pure and my conduct correct. 
 
 ' Huet. 
 
40 
 
 DE CLIFFORD | 
 
 On arriving at home, I am ashamed to say, every thing appeared 
 distasteful. My father's hale heartiness, though it pleased for the 
 moment, had not the dignity which belonged to Mr. Hastings. His 
 clothes were coarser, and not so well made; nor was my mother 
 either so well dressed, nor had she so smooth a manner, as Mr. 
 Hastings's housekeeper. The brusquerie of my brothers I was rather 
 afraid of, so only said to myself, how different their deportment 
 was from the Etonian knowingness acquired by my friend! 
 
 But Bertha, the elegant, the vivid, the frank, the graceful, whose 
 every feature and every motion, even without the aid of her beauty, 
 it did one good to think of 5 where was she? alas ! not in my homely 
 home, nor within fifty miles of it, but in her own palace — for such 
 I thought the abode which was blessed with her presence. 
 
 It is inconceivable what misery this folly of mine (for surely it 
 was not less) occasioned. But I tell it, that other young fools may 
 take warning by it, and not run the risk of shipwreck among rocks 
 and quicksands, because they do not chuse to see them. 
 
 Still shall I confess that when I did open my eyes, though I was 
 fully aware of the impenetrable barrier that interposed between me 
 and my wishes, the indulgence of them gave me sweeter enjoyments 
 than the actual gratification of any others which I afterwards 
 fostered. How did I not love that prettiest of all ballads, the "Wish,^ 
 by Bogers ! How often did I not repeat it in my walks, in my 
 chamber, and in my bed. Though got by heart, I never stirred out 
 without it, and I think of it now with delight, for the delight it 
 gave me then. Bogers's more elaborate, perhaps finer poems, 
 were not half so valued, whatever their superiority 5 and as, except 
 to lovers of eighteen, it may not be so well remembered, I cannot 
 even now refuse myself the pleasure of transcribing it, if only for 
 the early recollections it brings along with it. 
 
 Mine be a cot beside the hill, 
 A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear, 
 A willowy brook that turns a mill, 
 With many a fall shall linger near. 
 
 V Around my ivied porch shall spring, 
 Each fragrant flow'r that drinks the dew, 
 And Lucy at her wheel shall sing 
 In russet gown and apron blue. 
 
 " The village church among the trees, 
 Where first our marriage vows were given, 
 With merry peals shall swell the breeze, 
 And point with taper spire to heav'n." 
 
 With this ruling, this absorbing feeling, no wonder that all other 
 things became vapid. My first proof of this was in the total in- 
 difference with which I viewed our kindly neighbours at the Hall 
 Place. They were as affable, and the girls as fine in dress as ever; 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 41 
 
 but so fastidious was I grown, that their affability seemed too 
 familiar ; and as to their finery, O! heavens ! what comparison could 
 it bear with the simple elegance of Bertha! 
 
 1 visited the Hall, indeed, but the inhabitants, though so much 
 wealthier than we, seemed now to have lost all pretensions to 
 superiority, and were themselves thrown into obscurity. In fact, 
 there was nothing elegant, any more than interesting in existence, 
 but the scenery and inmates of Foljambe Park. 
 
 And yet I would not dissuade my younger readers, if the object 
 is worthy, from early love. The boy lover may, indeed, not reach 
 the chivalry of the mature knight, but depend upon it no youth, 
 under the influence of an honourable attachment, will ever enter- 
 tain a grovelling thought, much less stoop to a dishonourable act. 
 
 This I fell in my inmost heart. In mind, I became fastidious, de- 
 licate, jealous 5 in person and dress, nice, if not elegant. I was more 
 than ever alive to the sweets of poetry, particularly pastoral, and I 
 read with increased rapture in Virgil, the praises of Amaryllis or 
 Galatea. 
 
 In fine, I quaffed the sweet poison of this delicious madness till, 
 like other madmen, the delusion became part of myself, and, though 
 fully aware of the hopelessness of my case, I would not have parted 
 with my dream of success for all the realities of life. 
 
 In short, I felt the force of the exclamation of Leontes, — 
 
 " Make me but think so twenty years together, 
 No settled senses of the world could match, 
 The pleasures of that madness." 
 
 Thus passed my eighteenth year, full of romantic sentiment, 
 which, inspired as it was by a soul-elevating as well as all-engross- 
 ing passion, created within me a sort of poelry of the heart, which, 
 though it often was followed by cruel mortifications, never after- 
 wards left me. It, in fact, under a thousand vicissitudes of good and 
 evil, formed the gilding, or rather sunshine, of my life, chequered as 
 it was with many a cloud. 
 
 The earliest of these mortifications was the not hearing any thing 
 from Foljambe, much less of the deity, as I thought her, of that 
 place, which I never remembered but as the abode of the happy. 
 
 To be sure, I nursed myself in unreasonable, because presump- 
 tuous, hopes, not merely that I should be remembered, but remem- 
 bered with pleasure. My own ecstasies, which formed one perpe- 
 tual remembrance of what I had seen and what I had enjoyed, forbade 
 the thought that I should never see the Park again 5 but month after 
 month passed on without any note of remembrance, still less of re- 
 cal. Foljambe, indeed, had told me in the off-hand language of 
 Eton, he would " tip me a line some convenient day or other — 
 but I never found that day arrive. 
 
4 2 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 I became querulous and melancholy, as well as fastidious, and my 
 father— who, notwithstanding the retirement and mechanism of his 
 life, was not without observation of the world, and derived some 
 notions of human nature from even such temporary insight into it 
 as could be derived from his attendances on the grand juries — in 
 some degree divined my disease. 
 
 " Lad, 1 ' said he one day to me, " it was an evil hour when I al- 
 lowed thee to pass those days with young Hastings at yon fine place, 
 schoolfellow as he was. It has made thee discontent with thy own 
 home, and will not help thee much, I doubt, abroad. Thou seest 
 thou art already forgotten, and,, mayhap, if they were to meet thee 
 at summer assizes, they would not know thee. ,, 
 
 I shuddered at this, and combated it with all my might, but my 
 father would not give up his opinion. 
 
 Early, however, or rather precocious as were the feelings I have 
 described, scarcely intelligible even to myself, they were attended 
 with effects upon my character which demonstrated them to be of 
 the most pure and genuine cast. Not only I felt asensible increase of 
 manliness within me, but an elevation and refinement of spirit that 
 was to myself surprising. My age had advanced seemingly half-a- 
 dozen years. I felt like a man, and I thought like a man 5 and, 
 above all, I felt and thought nothing but what a high-minded man 
 would have allowed himself to think and feel. I spurned every thing 
 mean, gross, or indelicate. I was alive only to sentiments that were 
 honourable, polished, and liberal 5 not merely because they were 
 estimable in themselves, but because they alone could be esteemed 
 by her. I trust, I was not naturally disposed to their opposites, but 
 if I was, my nature was changed, and I felt the force of an observa- 
 tion ( I think, of Sterne), that a man in love can never condescend 
 to a shabby thing. 
 
 The matter did not stop here, for I never now thought of myself 
 so much the son of a decayed gentleman, as the descendant of the 
 De Cliffords, whose ancient lineage and high renown I traced with 
 heightened avidity in the library of the Hall Place. 
 
 About this time, too, I first met with the tragedy of Douglas, 
 and, be sure, likened myself to young Norval ; for, like him, though 
 apparently a shepherd's son, I had in reality a high descent, and, 
 like him, 
 
 " I had heard of battles, and I longed 
 To follow to the field some warlike lord." 
 
 When also I came to the line, 
 
 " The blood of Douglas will protect itself." 
 
 my heart leaped 5 for, of course, I felt convinced that the blood of 
 Clifford would do the same. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 4* 
 
 How soon was all this fine romance dissipated by sober and 
 homely reality, when, in the character of a poor exhibitioner who 
 had his bread to procure, I was summoned to the venerable and 
 venerated seals of science at Oxford, whose towers now rise to my 
 view, and open a new world to my recollections. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 OXFORD SOCIETY AND MANNERS. — CHARACTER OF MR. FOTHERGILL. 
 
 Do you not grieve at this. 
 I shall be sent for in private to him ; look you, he must seem thus to the world. 
 
 Shakspeare, Henry IV., Second Part. 
 
 It was indeed a new world that greeted me in these celebrated 
 temples of learning, which every one that has been among them has 
 cause to remember, either for joy or sorrow. I shall not, however, 
 attempt any minute account either of; my impressions on my first 
 arrival, or my occupations afterwards, chiefly those of study. I shall 
 not record, because they will hereafter speak for themselves, the 
 connections I formed; the manners I observed; the acquirements I 
 made 5 the pleasures I enjoyed 5 the mortifications I endured. 
 
 These last, as a discipline for the mind, and as leading to the 
 true knowledge, and therefore true appreciation of things (by which 
 I mean of the world and human nature), did me more essential ser- 
 vice in fitting me for after life than any other occurrences in my career. 
 
 At first, novelty and a semblance of independence, such as I had 
 never felt before, promised happiness. The men of my own College 
 were superior to me in nothing but experience, for I found myself 
 by no means behind them in academical lore. Had distinction there- 
 fore been confined to those acquisitions of knowledge for which I 
 supposed we all of us were sent to the place, I thought my chance 
 of obtaining it equal to that of another, and therefore felt satisfied. 
 Distinction was my object for more causes than one; for every page 
 I read, every prize I obtained, and every acquaintance I cultivated, 
 all resolved themselves into the one absorbing ambition that now 
 filled my soul. To be one day worthy of the notice of Bertha was by 
 far the most exciting, if not the only stimulus that prompted me to 
 shut myself up, "forego all custom of exercise;" and thinking — 
 
 " To burst out into sudden blaze, 
 To scorn delights, and live laborious days." 
 
 In short, as I had neither wealth nor other distinction, I felt that 
 severe study alone would give me that after which my heart panted, 
 in order 
 
 '* To win her grace whom all commend." 
 
DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 If I can accomplish high academical honours, I said to myself, 
 they will certainly be heard of at Foljambe Park. 
 
 Precious, sanguine, and most sagacious youth ! to suppose that 
 to construe Pindar, or even Lycophron, to have Aristotle at your 
 fingers' ends, or to square the circle, if you could, would recom- 
 mend at best a decayed gentleman and homely gownsman of Queen's 
 to the bright eyes of a girl of sixteen, born of the aristocracy, and of 
 a family as fastidious as they were ancient. 
 
 Such, however, is the all-slimulating power of this mightiest of 
 our passions, mightiest at least in the bosom of a youth of eighteen. 
 Thus I overleaped seeming impossibilities in the recollection of a 
 single smile of Bertha. I forgot her superior fortune, her high des- 
 cent, and aristocratic father. 
 
 AH this, added to the recollection that I was the bosom friend of 
 her brother, kept me up in my own estimation as long as I re- 
 mained within my college : but out of it, alas! every thing taught 
 me another lesson. For the moment I sallied beyond the gates, and 
 mingled with, or rather looked at the world, I found that an Eng- 
 lish University was anything but a place where English freedom, 
 or English equality, and independence of prerogative were prac- 
 tised. On the contrary, prerogative was every thing, independence 
 nothing. There was the prerogative of birth; the prerogative of 
 riches • the prerogative of fashion. There were silk gowns and 
 gold tufts that lorded it over the humble crape or bombazine, and 
 ate at the tables of masters and doctors, while the poor commoners 
 were denominated " inferioris ordinis." 
 
 This, I own, stung me with the sense it gave of my own little- 
 ness; but only because it seemed to increase my distance from 
 Bertha. Every disparily was heightened, and caused tenfold mor- 
 tification, from Ihis cause alone. 1 haled grand compounders, not 
 because they were men of a certain estate, but because I was a man 
 of none, and therefore could not pretend to Bertha. 
 
 For the same reason I hated all the happy (as I then thought 
 them) who look degrees Honoris causa ; as if nobility, or royal 
 descent, made a road to science easier and smoother than with the 
 ordinary ranks. These things astounded, and almost made me a 
 democrat, though Thucydides and Plularch soon brought mc 
 round again by the hideous piUures ihey gave me of democracy '. 
 
 1 These are not times to do away distinctions of rank; nevertheless the anomalies 
 which appear in the state of English society and manners, where theoretically and in law 
 all are equal, while practically there never were such inequalities, is an absolute riddie. 
 If ever equality in every thing except merit ought to prevail, it surely ought to be in 
 schools and colleges, the common fields of learning, in which he who cultivates them 
 best, will obtain the greatest distinction. The immensity of the difference occasioned by 
 the mere extraneous circumstances of rank and fortune among those whose community 
 of youth and inexperience, and community of pursuits, it should seem, would insure 
 equality, if anywhere to be found, appears not more impolitic than ridiculous. Besides 
 its origin is feudal, and feudality having been long abolished, its excrescencies ought to 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 But alas! this was not all. Not only in the theatre, the university 
 distinctions of rank convinced me of my own littleness, but the 
 greater theatre of public opinion, the manners, looks, dress, exclu- 
 siveness, and airs of rank, wealth, and fashion, which I beheld in 
 the streets, in the walks, and in the riding parties, all denoted se- 
 parations of class, which brought my own inferiority, factitious as 
 I felt it to be, more home to my indi gnant bosom x . And very sore 
 it was to the aspirations I had formed, and from which I could not 
 part. I could have forgiven the coxcombry which made the wearer 
 of a tufted gown with sleeves think himself far removed above my 
 plain one without 5 but when in every look of superciliousness I 
 met, I felt a demonstration of the impossibility of success in the 
 mad wishes I indulged, I was ready to weep at what I felt to be the 
 injustice of the world. 
 
 Hence, however, the increase and expansion of that independent 
 spirit which in after years set me above 44 the whips and scorns of 
 the time." This spirit alone made me a keen examiner into the 
 motives and characters of men 5 the nature and power of the pas- 
 sions } the operations of caprice, selfishness, or ambition 5 while, 
 on the other hand, it gave me all the anodynes which reason and 
 common sense, when not borne down by passion, supply to coun- 
 teract our discontent, the cause of which, after all, is nothing but 
 an all-devouring vanity on our own parts. 
 
 Remember, reader, I do not pretend to have acquired this spirit 
 at the time I am describing. God knows, I had as many heart- 
 burnings as another, particularly those which belonged to the ab- 
 sorbing, tormenting, yet delightful passion which I have described 
 as possessing me. I am only surmising, at the same time that I 
 confess the mortifications, the remedies which made them harmless, 
 and I found them all summed up in one little sentence of the master 
 of Nature, and charmer of our fancy, 
 
 " This above all— to thine own self be true." 
 
 be abolished too : but such a reform is not the only one which the madness and wicked- 
 ness of Chartism forbids. 
 
 1 On this subject, see some able reflections by Sir E. L. Bulwer, in perhaps the best of 
 his works, though not the most imaginative, " England and the English." 
 
 *» At no place are the demarcations of birth and fortune so faintly traced as at school 
 —nowhere are they so broad and deep as at a university. The young noble is suddenly 
 removed from the side of the young commoner. When he walks, he is indued in a distin- 
 guishing costume ; when he dines, he is placed at a higher table, along with the heads of 
 his college. Punctuality in lectures and prayers is of no vital importance to a young man 
 of such expectations. At Cambridge, the eldest son of one baronet assumes a peculiarity 
 in costume, to distinguish him from the younger son of another, and is probably a 
 greater man at college than he ever is during the rest of his life. It is at college that an 
 eldest son suddenly leaps into that consequence, that elevation above his brothers, which 
 he afterwards retains through life. A marked distinction in dress, dinners, luxuries, and, 
 in some colleges, discipline, shews by times the value attached to wealth, and wealth 
 only. It is obvious that these distinctions, so sudden and so marked, must occasion an 
 embarrassment and coldness in the continuance at college of friendships formed at 
 schools."— England and the English, p. f 60-1. 
 
46 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 This maxim, given to the young Laertes on setting out in the 
 world, was first set before me by one of whom I shall presently 
 speak, and of whom I never can speak but with reverence, for his 
 knowledge of men as well as of books, and his saving care in steer- 
 ing me through a course of danger. In time, it laid such hold of 
 me, thai it never was out of my mind, and scarcely ever off my 
 tongue, and I found it of such support and comfort, that, much to 
 the diversion of my fellow-collegians, I wrote it in capital letters 
 on the wall opposite my bed, that I might begin the day with it on 
 my waking in the morning. 
 
 At first I was laughed at, ridiculed, quizzed. No matter, I kept 
 on my course, and often quoted my motto to those who laughed at 
 it, but by departing from it, too often stood in need of its wisdom. 
 My inflexibility, indeed, in this and other matters, amounting 
 almost to an appearance of phlegm (though any thing but phleg- 
 matic ), got me in the end, a sort of reputation for firmness and self- 
 possession, which made me independent of scoffers. 
 
 In narrating these things I have rather digressed from the order 
 of time, led from it by the opinions generated by what I saw, and 
 what I observed as to the character of the place upon a fuller 
 acquaintance with it. 
 
 I ought, however, preliminarily to have stated that I was con- 
 signed to the care and inspection of the Rev. Mr. Fothergill, the 
 principal tutor, a cousin of my mother's, and to whom I had been 
 especially recommended by testimonials from the great Cracken- 
 thorpe, for whose abilities and principles, notwithstanding his un- 
 couthness, all Queen's men had the highest respect. This and our 
 relationship created an interest about me at once in the mind of my 
 tutor, which afterwards developed itself to my advantage. For he 
 was a man not only well skilled in all college lore, but of great 
 observation, made keener by natural shrewdness, and perhaps a 
 natural disposition to sarcasm. 
 
 These, and the opportunities which his situation gave him of 
 estimating the characters of the youths he superintended, by prob- 
 ing their motives, and watching the career of all about him, in 
 other colleges as well as his own, had had ample play during the 
 sort of censorship which for ten years he had exercised over all the 
 various ranks of men which Oxford contained. They had also been 
 well exercised in other and more exciting scenes, in other and high- 
 er walks of life 5 — for he had not been always a mere barn yard 
 academical bird, but had seen and acted, though with not too much 
 pleasure, in far different societies than those into which he had 
 now settled down. Of this I shall have occasion hereafter to speak. 
 
 Mr. Fothergill had withal a certain bonhomie and frankness of 
 manner, approaching to goodnatured raillery, which, by disarming 
 suspicion, laid people more open to his penetration. His exterior 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN 
 
 47 
 
 was not polished, and his dialect had the broad twang of his county, 
 which, while it gave a seemingly additional force to his observa- 
 tions, seemed also to add to their sincerity. Not that there was any 
 disguise about him, for he was as honourable as shrewd, and good- 
 natured as keen, untarnished by bad qualities, and wishing well to 
 his species, though alive to their defects. 
 
 My first communication with him discovered something of his 
 disposition 5 for my earliest desire , as may be supposed, was to 
 find out Hastings, the friend of my childhood, the brother of my 
 adored, on whom my all of happiness in the world just opening to 
 me, both now and in future, seemed to depend. As Hastings had 
 proceeded to college some time before me, I concluded, nor was I 
 mistaken, that he was in Oxford as well as myself, and my first 
 impulse was to see him. How delightful, I said to myself, to find 
 this friend of my heart, still my fellow-labourer in the glorious 
 vineyard of science, and to realize our fond anticipations of going 
 through the world together. 
 
 The thought so pleased, that as soon as the ceremony of matri- 
 culation was over, I besought Mr. Fothergill, who was preparing 
 to initiate me in my new way of life, to excuse me for half an hour, 
 for that the dearest friend I had in the world was at Christ Church, 
 and it would shock him and all the rights of friendship if I did not 
 immediately seek him. 44 He will never forgive me," said I 44 if I 
 delay a minute." 
 
 Mr. Fothergill smiled at this sally, a smile which I did not then 
 understand. 
 
 44 Cavalier enough," said he, 44 in a man just entered. You have 
 all the feelings as well as the inexperience of a freshman. However, 
 as you are so alive to friendship, and no doubt your friend is equally 
 sensitive, and feels for you as if he were still at Sedbergh, go ! 
 search him out, and report to me as a good pupil ought to do, on 
 your return." 
 
 He said this good-humouredly, though sceptical as to belief in 
 the mutual professions of young men who, he said, were oftener 
 more comrades than friends. In particular, from his opportunities 
 of judging, he had no very high ideas of school friendships. 
 
 This I could not bear, and contested it with a warmth which 
 only made him smile the more 5 so I set him down as cold and as- 
 cetic, who knew nothing of the balm and blessing of mutual regard 5 
 and to supply a complete refutation of his unjust opinion, I hur- 
 ried to Christ Church as fast as I could. 
 
 When arrived at the gale, I begged the porter, a man of most 
 imposing dignity, to inform Mr. Hastings that his friend Mr. Clif- 
 ford (for I generally dropt the De) of Queen's was waiting for him. 
 
 44 Mr. Hastings ! " exclaimed the porter, surveying my stuff and 
 sleeveless gown, 44 Why he is a Gentleman Commoner." 
 
4$ 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 " I know it," said I. 
 
 " But he is engaged," replied he, "for I saw him go by to Lord 
 Albany's rooms, who I suppose you don't know, and he will not be 
 able to come to you, for he is hand and glove with my lord." 
 
 "What of that?" said I, with some impatience. 
 
 "Why, when they gets together, there's no saying when they'll 
 part," replied the porter; " besides you say you belong to Queen's, 
 and we have very few Queen's men, I may say none at all, as visits 
 here." 
 
 Saucy enough, thought 1 5 however I suppose there are Jack's-in- 
 office every where, and, in my simplicity and my freshness, I told 
 him I was sure Mr. Hastings would be exlremely displeased with 
 him for such an answer, for that I was his particular friend. 
 
 " That may or may not be," returned Cerberus, rather laughing, 
 and surveying me again with a look of superciliousness, at the 
 same time holding the wicket as if he would close it in my face. 
 But whether I had the look of a real gentleman, although a decayed 
 one, or he thought to prove a dignified superiority by condescen- 
 sion, he at last said he would take my name to Mr. Hastings, 
 though he added, that he always staid long with my lord, and pro- 
 bably would not be down for an hour. 
 
 I meekly said I would wait the time, and the porter, with a smile 
 at a resignation so unusual, and moved, I fear, more on account of 
 Foljambe than Foljambe's friend, proceeded up a staircase with his 
 message. 
 
 My impatience to embrace my friend may be imagined, as well 
 as my disappointment, when the aristocratic janitor brought word 
 that Mr. Hastings was so particularly engaged that he could not 
 come down, but would call upon me soon at Queen's. 
 
 u I thought it would be so," added he, " for this is always the 
 time when Lord Albany and he practises in the mufflers." 
 
 "Mufflers," cried I, in my ignorance, and not overpleased, 
 " what are they ?" 
 
 "0!" replied he, smiling again with a sense of superiority, 
 " it's a sign you are a freshman, or you would know that Mr. Douce, 
 who gives lessons in boxing, is more attended to than most of the 
 other tutors." 
 
 I congratulated the university on this accession to their tutors, 
 and withdrew to my college somewhat mortified, but still anticipat- 
 ing the pleasure of being visited by my friend in the course of at 
 most an hour. I waited, however, all the rest of the day, having 
 first warned our own porter to be on the watch in case I was asked 
 for by Mr. Hastings of Christ Church. But the warning was unne- 
 cessary , for after waiting the whole evening in vain, I retired to 
 bed, and passed a restless night, thinking certainly with more plea- 
 sure of Berlha than of Bertha's brother. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 49 
 
 The next day, as soon as the college exercises permitted it, I 
 look the road again to Christ Church, for noFoljambe had appeared 
 at Queen's ; but before I could reach it, I was met by a gay party 
 of young men on horseback, one of whom, by his air, I knew at 
 once to be Hastings; I drew up upon the pavement that he might 
 the more easily distinguish me. Will it be believed? Though he 
 knew, and even kissed his hand and spoke to me, it was only to 
 say " How are you?" nor did he stop, as I expected, to greet me, 
 though my own heart was swelling towards him with joy and 
 pleasure ! 
 
 Astounded, discomfited, angry, grieved, I immediately returned 
 to my rooms, in a paroxysm of contending emotions 5 having bolted 
 my door, I threw myself on my bed unmanned, and would have 
 wept had I not been ashamed. In this I knew not whether I was 
 most prompted by offended pride, or disappointed affection. 
 
 Though so new to the university, I was not unaware of the great 
 and marked line of distinction, whether as to literary or fashionable 
 reputation, which belonged to different colleges, and I knew that 
 in both Christ Church affected at least to take a lead. But I had no 
 suspicion that this would interrupt the sacred rights of friendship, 
 which, not having parted with my Sedbergh simplicity, I was fresh 
 enough still to treat with all honour. Pride, however, got the bet- 
 ter, and though, as the brother of Bertha, exclusive of my love for 
 himself, Hastings seemed to me a sort of demi-god, I made a fierce 
 resolution never again to visit Christ Church, till this advocate for 
 the equality of mankind had returned my visit. 
 
 In this, however, I played a little at cheating the devil 5 for not 
 to deprive myself of all chance of meeting him, and therefore of 
 explanation, I spent all my spare time in the High-street, with oc- 
 casional deviations into the public walks! 
 
 This lasted two days, during which my inquiries of our college 
 porter after the expected call, were always answered with a gruff 
 "No! " On the third I was greeted with the wished intelligence, 
 which was much alloyed, however, by the addition that the young 
 squire (as our porter called Hastings) had begun by asking whe- 
 ther I was not at dinner in the hall, and, being answered in the 
 affirmative, had left his card. 
 
 The card, much to the gatekeeper's astonishment, I tore all to 
 pieces ! " He knew we dined earlier than other colleges," said I to 
 myself, and "therefore he called. If I bear this! " 
 
 And I actually stamped with agitation. 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 BE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OF THE GOOD ADVICE 1 RECEIVED FROM MY TUTOR, AND WHAT I THOUGHT OF HIM FOR IT 
 
 Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee, 
 Shakspeare, Troil. and Cress. 
 
 "Bear what? and what would you do?" said Mr. Fothergill, 
 who had come close behind me, and heard my exclamation, with- 
 out my perceiving him. "What is it that you are so resolved 
 not to bear?" 
 
 Now, my good tutor, in the very little period f but three days ) 
 of our acquaintance, had already won much of my confidence. 
 Indeed, I was always disposed, with the freshness of youth which 
 is so delightful, rather to give than to withhold that confidence 
 where it appeared to be deserved, so that I was upon the point of 
 telling him my grievance. But he anticipated me. 
 
 " I can see," said he, " that for the last two days you have been 
 much ruffled. You have suddenly lost that open, joyous alacrity 
 which I noted on your entry on this new scene, and which I attri- 
 buted mainly to your hopes of renewing your familiar intercourse 
 with c the dearest friend you have in the world.' " Here he smiled, 
 as I thought, sarcastically, adding, "Was I right?" 
 
 " You certainly were," replied I, colouring and growing hot. 
 
 u And am I right again in thinking that in this dearest friend 
 you may not have met with all that reciprocity of friendship which 
 you expected?" 
 
 "I certainly find this place," answered I, with perhaps some 
 equivocation, "different from Yorkshire." 
 
 " And Christ Church, I suppose, very different from Sedbergh ? " 
 
 " Perhaps so-, but I know nothing about Christ Church." 
 
 Seeing that I said this with humour — " Come," added he, " not 
 only as a tutor and a kinsman, but as one who has taken a liking 
 to you, and would guide you in a strange land if he could, let me 
 task your feelings a little ; and if I seem to probe them deeply, at- 
 tribute it to what it is — interest about your mother's son, and one 
 who has enjoyed good report from the greatest of Yorkshire au- 
 thorities — for, I dare say, old Crackenthorpe would not yield to 
 any doctor of us all, in his supposed knowledge of the world, as 
 well as of Homer." 
 
 At this he took my arm, proposing a turn in Maudlin walks, 
 " his custom always in the afternoon," and spoke so good humour- 
 edly, that I forgot his inuondos, and ( half disposed to it before) he 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 51 
 
 won me over to open all my mortification to him. " It seemed,' 7 
 I said, " the bitterest disappointment I had ever yet experienced." 
 
 " IVo doubt of it," observed Fothergill 5 "but you will be lucky, 
 my young friend, if you meet not severer rubs than these, both now, 
 in college, and still more hereafter in the world." 
 
 4 'Is this my prospect?" asked I. "And am I to forego the greatest 
 and almost only delight I ever had — friendship?" 
 
 How much of this language was owing to the recollection of 
 Bertha, how much to her brother, I will not pretend to say, but 
 Mr. Fothergill, seeing my real anxiety, replied with kindness, yet 
 with much decision of tone, " I honour you for your sincerity, and 
 would rather regulate than destroy your sensibility, which, without 
 such regulation, may do you a great deal more harm than good. 
 In particular, I pity the disappointment you seem to be laying in 
 store for yourself, in what you expect from this early friendship of 
 yours with a man so much above you.' 1 
 
 " Above me ! " cried I. " Why at Sedbergh we were inseparable ; 
 and he always held that rank and fortune made no difference in 
 friendship." 
 
 " 'Twere a consummation devoutly to be wished," replied Fother- 
 gill, and walked on, as if he had no more to say. 
 
 After a turn or two, however, he stopped, and said, "Let us 
 examine this matter a little. Here, you, with your stuff gown, and 
 paltry exhibition of fifty pounds a year, at a plebeian college too, 
 think you are to be on a level with a young heir, clothed with purple 
 and fine linen, the companion of gold tufts, and who spends his five 
 hundred in the temple of fashion! My good cousin, " he added, 
 seeing I coloured, " though I allow much for the blood of the 
 Cliffords, this must be whipt out of you, or you will be miserable, 
 both here and in the world." 
 
 " Yet I have heard Hastings himself say," replied I, not over 
 pleased, " that friendship, like Caesar's arms, will throw down all 
 distinctions, 
 
 4 Who e'er is brave and virtuous is a Roman.' " 
 
 " And you believed him?" 
 "I did." 
 
 " Well, perhaps he believed so himself in the solitudes of Sed- 
 bergh, where there was no distinction to throw down 5 here we order 
 things differently." 
 
 "But is not nature, nature," asked I, "and every where the 
 same?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly 5 and it is because the change you complain of is 
 mere nature, only finding itself in another situation, that your friend 
 thus slights you." 
 
52 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 "I wouid not think as you do for all the world," said I, with 
 decision. 
 
 " Many have said the same," answered he dryly, " on this very 
 spot too, and yet have come round to my opinion." 
 
 " But I know not that he has slighted me, after all," said I ga- 
 thering courage, rather indignant at my tutor's suspicion. 
 
 " Bravo! " replied he; " keep up your gallant spirit. Go back to 
 Christ Church • assert your equality with Foljambe Park, and see 
 what will come of it." 
 
 Itis astonishing how these words, "equality with Foljambe Park," 
 unnerved me. 
 
 The inequality between me and that dear place, and the still 
 dearer person who formed its chief or only value, had been too 
 much the object of my secret lamentation not to make the speech 
 sink deep into my feelings, and I gave a long-drawn sigh, which 
 surprized my good tutor, fresh as he thought me. 
 
 "Come," said he, " this heart-burning is rather too much. I 
 allow a good deal for a sudden disappointment to a warm young 
 mind ; but as you are to live in the world, I would teach you the 
 world, and the first lesson I would give is, the impolicy, not to call 
 it degradation, to the inferior, that attends unequal friendships," 
 
 " Impolicy ! " cried I 5 "degradation to love Hastings, or to have 
 been won by his love ! " 
 
 " Mistake me not," said my mentor; "it cannot degrade you to 
 love Hastings, but it may to court his love, particularly if it is on 
 the wane, or cannot bear the test of being transplanted from a 
 wholesome natural soil to a hot-bed like this. You say yourself, 
 that Eton, you feared, caused some alteration, and, be assured, 
 Oxford will not mend the matter. Whatever may be the other ad- 
 vantages of Alma Mater, this one is great and certain, that she is 
 an epitome of that world to which she is the first real entrance. 
 You there first see life as it will be, and characters as they are, and 
 here you will be really initiated in the knowledge of that demar- 
 cation which separates society into its different ranks." 
 
 " I hate all demarcations," exclaimed I, almost angrily, " that 
 can separate kindred minds. At school we always thought alike. 
 He loved nobody so well, indeed nobody else, and said we should 
 go through the world together." 
 
 Fothergill gave his accustomed smile, though he allowed that 
 perhaps Hastings might have thought himself sincere when he 
 said this. 
 
 " Perhaps! " cried I, " thought himself! O, how little do you 
 know him ! " 
 
 "We shall see," said my mentor. He then paused, as if I had 
 made him doubt 5 but resuming — " I love your confiding disposi- 
 tion," said he, "and may it not be disappointed. Yet the coldness 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 53 
 
 shewn already, shews also whereabouts Hastings considers you. 
 He has already caught the esprit de corps of his proud college, 
 which animated its very porter when he so saucily told you they 
 had very few Queen's men 6 as visited there.' — But even without 
 the aids of Christ Church to imbue him with all the vanities of 
 youth, his position in the world alone, even his very talents, which 
 have already shewn themselves in all the eccentricities in which 
 young high-born men, and rich withal, are allowed here to indulge 
 themselves; would make me fear for your happiness with him. 
 Though here but six months, he has already distinguished himself 
 as a sort of Alcibiades, in both luxury, gallantry, and the love of 
 being conspicuous. With so much mercury in his composition — 
 which, though dormant at Sedbergh and under his father's roof, 
 where sentiment and romance might have been the order of the 
 day, has been warmed into activity by the brisker atmosphere of 
 Oxford and liberty — how could he fail to make himself notorious, 
 as a flirt with the women, and a renowner with the men 1 . In the 
 first of these characters I fear he has already done much mischief 
 to the daughter of one of our most respectable heads of houses, 
 whose head he has turned by attentions which, of course, meaning 
 nothing, can be little less than fraudulent \ as Clara Meadows, the 
 poor girl I mean, has even now found to her cost. 
 
 "I have mentioned Alcibiades," continued Fothergill, after a 
 momentary pause, " because we lectured about him yesterday in 
 Plutarch 5 but take also what Marmontel says of him, turning him, 
 indeed, into a Frenchman. < La Nature et la fortune sembloient 
 avoir conspire au bonheur d'Alcibiade. Richesses, talens, beaute ? 
 naissance, la fleur de l'a\ge et de la sante-, que de titres pour avoir 
 tous les ridicules ! " 
 
 I own, I thought this a bitter sarcasm, and could not believe a 
 word of it. I accused Fothergill, in my own mind, of prejudice, 
 perhaps of envy, at any rate of petty tyranny. Never would I be- 
 lieve that Hastings, who had so exclusively loved me at school, and 
 introduced me to his aristocratic father and angelic sister, as al- 
 most an equal, could be proud, much less ridiculous. 
 
 My looks spoke my feelings 5 and Fothergill, seeing my emotion, 
 good-naturedly, to change the conversation, said he would give me 
 some tea at his rooms 5 an honour which, offered to a freshman 
 and under-graduate, by a tutor and Master of Arts, I could not 
 decline. 
 
 « Alluding, no doubt, to the students of the German universities, where to be notorious 
 for excess of any kind is necessary to their reputation, and goes by the name of " re- 
 nowning." 
 
54 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EFFECTS OF OXFORD SOCIETY AND MANNERS ON FOLJAMBE HASTINGS 
 
 Spoke like a tall fellow that respects his reputation. 
 
 Shakspearb. — Rich. III. 
 
 Notwithstanding my tutor's kindness, and my sense of his 
 condescension, being such an academical grandee in comparison 
 with myself, I felt a sort of sullenness at the tea-table, of which I 
 afterwards was ashamed. I was jealous for myself, and, though 
 sufficiently indignant, jealous for Hastings too. For my own sake, 
 I would not believe that he had slighted me, and for his, I would 
 not believe that he could do so. I recollected, vividly and fondly, 
 all the elegant superiorities of Foljambe Park, particularly those of 
 what I called its young mistress; and I was angry with my kind, 
 though shrewd and observing adviser, for the advice and opinions 
 he had given. I had heard of college pedants, and rusty tutors, 
 and could not help, in my wisdom and my justice, ranking him 
 as one of them. I then, for the first time, observed that his clothes 
 were ill made, and not over well brushed 5 his band was rumpled, 
 and not well starched 5 and his figure, though erect from decision of 
 mind, was too ponderous to be elegant. 
 
 He knows nothing of Foljambe Park, thought I, and it is because 
 he is insensible to the attractions of the high manners, and ignorant 
 of the beauty and grace, that reign there, that he desires to break 
 this connexion. He never saw Bertha, and wishes to make me a 
 yeoman like himself. 
 
 What injustice did I not do to this kind and honourable, as well 
 as observing man, in this petulant opinion of him ! Yet it was some 
 time before I gave him the credit he deserved for cool judgment 
 and knowledge of life, acquired by the skilful use he had made of 
 his opportunities. As it was, I was out of humour, and as soon as 
 possible disengaging myself from the honours of the tea party, I 
 proceeded to moralize very differently, among the gay throng which 
 of an evening peopled the shades of Christ Church walk. 
 
 Here I observed excellent specimens of provincial and academi- 
 cal consequence, in all the exhibitions of nature which my tutor had 
 discussed. And very varied were they, according as the pride of 
 scholarship in the men, with its consequent power, and comfortable 
 endowments, or the pride of beauty in the women, with its con- 
 sciousness still more inflated from its scarcity, predominated. 
 
 The heads of houses equalled the pomp of generals on a parade ; 
 while their wives and daughters, with the sort of natural instinct 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 55 
 
 inherent in the sex, played (and with equal success) the part of their 
 supposed betters in the higher walks of life. 
 
 What particularly struck me, was the immense consequence 
 given by the younger and unmarried females to a number of young 
 men whose costume denoted them of quality, and who buzzed 
 about them with gilded wings, dangerous to their young heads, and 
 perhaps to their young hearts, if the hearts of coquets, which most 
 university beauties are, can ever be said to be in danger. 
 
 However this may be, the importance of these young men, or 
 rather perhaps of the association kindled by the silk and velvet in 
 which they were clothed, was fully demonstrated in the reception 
 everywhere given them by fathers and mothers, and especially by 
 daughters. 
 
 These last seemed to "rain influence, and judge the prize" of 
 fashion in this microcosm of human life now beheld for the first lime. 
 
 But what struck me still more on this occasion, was the poor and 
 unimportant figure made by Commoners like myself, in comparison 
 with the happier people I have mentioned, — happier, if to absorb 
 the notice of the fair dryads of the walk, to the exclusion of us 
 plebeians, was happiness 5 as I then thought it was. I fell, indeed, 
 so uneasy under it, that I became pensive and melancholy amid 
 the gaiety that surrounded me, and was upon the point of returning 
 home to hear what my mentor had to say upon it, when, sailing 
 down the walk at the head of a bevy composed of the deities of the 
 place, I beheld Hastings, in the full glory of university and fashion- 
 able consequence, occupying all attention from male and female. 
 
 As our eyes met, it was impossible for him not to know me, and 
 I loved him still too much to repress the pleasure I had in seeing 
 him. Undazzled therefore by his companions, and alive only to na- 
 ture, I waited not for his recognition, but fairly and so pointedly 
 sought his hand, that he could not refuse it. He gave it, however, 
 with an embarrassed air, not the less because my eagerness, for a 
 moment, discomposed the movement of his party, whose curiosity 
 was piqued by my brusquerie. Lord Albany and sir Henry Mel- 
 ford in particular stared at me with lofty wonder, the ladies tittered, 
 and my friend was evidently disconcerted by the interruption. 
 
 Do not, however, let me be unjust to Hastings 5 his embarrass- 
 ment was not that of a vulgar coxcomb, ashamed of meeting an in- 
 ferior in high company. He himself was too high, too much at his 
 ease in that company, and too conscious of his own station and po- 
 wers, to condescend to such a thought. The little awkwardness 
 shewn, as he afterwards confessed, arose from a sort of shame, or 
 rather a sense of ingratitude, which he felt, at having neglected an 
 old companion who hadalway sshewn such evidentattachment to him. 
 
 With respect to myself, new to the world (especially the fine 
 ■world), its manners and conventional signs, I felt no shame, for I 
 
56 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 had done no wrong. I was not even abashed, but was alive only io 
 the pleasure of at last meeting my best and only friend, no matter 
 how surrounded. As to his former seeming slight, therefore, it was 
 all forgiven in a moment. 
 
 To do him justice, he perceived this, and whatever his feeling, he 
 had not the heart to repulse me, but, his companions having passed 
 on, seemed quite to recover himself, and said, with almost his old 
 frankness, that he rejoiced to see me. Nay, though his friends once 
 or twice looked back, as if inquiring what he could possibly have 
 to do with a humble Queen's man, it did not detach him from the 
 colloquy while it lasted. He even apologized for not having found 
 me out, and, though he said (what I already felt to be true), that 
 Oxford was very different from Sedbergh, hoped we should not for- 
 get our pleasant school days together. 
 
 Though this was uttered in a tone of sincerity, I own I did not 
 like it. I thought it was said protectingly, and more politely than 
 suited my downright disposition. I was, however, relieved, when 
 with more heartiness, he asked me to breakfast with him the next 
 morning, in order, as he said, to talk over old Crackenthorpe and 
 his milkmaid daughters. I was in hopes he would have added some- 
 thing of one who was any thing but a milkmaid, and I was about to 
 inquire after Bertha ; but my heart failed, my tongue refused its of- 
 fice, and we parted, he to regain his gay companions, I to revolve, 
 in my way home, the thousand thoughts, some agreeable, some 
 doubtful, occasioned by this interview. 
 
 The approaching dusk gave a tinge to this frame of mind, not 
 altogether unpleasing, but of a sombre hue, and the tolling of Tom, 
 that greatest of curfews, sending all stragglers home to their col- 
 leges, wound up my feelings with appropriate solemnity. 
 
 I had now food for meditation quite enough to employ and pro- 
 long my waking hours. However, set off by his sense of his own 
 consequence, and the influence he seemed to enjoy with his fine 
 friends, it was evident that Hastings had not forgotten me, and could 
 not be estranged from a man whom he had asked to breakfast. 
 
 My tutor's surmise, therefore, as to his finery was palpably wrong. 
 Of finery indeed he was guiltless, for, as I have said, he was too 
 proud to be merely fine. 
 
 Shall I here disguise my own silly finery or vanity, call it what 
 you will (it was not worthy the name of pride), when the next day, 
 on going to my appointment, I said, in a tone of self-consequence, 
 to my friend the porter when he let me in, u I am going to break- 
 fast with Mr. Hastings." Fool that I was, I took pleasure in theja- 
 nitor's bow at these words, for it made me think that he had altered 
 his opinion of me, and perhaps of my whole college. So much for 
 the philosophy of eighteen. 
 This nonsense, however, soon passed away, thanks to Fothergill 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 57 
 
 and my own sense of independence, and I mention it because in re- 
 lating the facts of my life, I mean not to cancel its follies. 
 
 When I joined my friend, however, the elegance of his rooms, 
 and the recherche of his breakfast, reminded me much, and almost 
 painfully, of the grandeur which had for the first time made me 
 feel my own littleness at Foljambe Park. 
 
 Had Hastings, indeed, been the only one concerned in this, I 
 perhaps should not have minded it. In regard to him, I felt like a 
 real brother, or rather like the Hidalgo of Castile, whose saying I 
 always so much admired— " I am as good a gentleman as the king, 
 only not so rich and this, without referring to the blood of the 
 Clifford's, but merely from a conviction that may belong to every 
 one who feels his mind to be the abode of honour, and is a gentle- 
 man, whatever his condition. The superiority, therefore, of Has- 
 . tings, in his rooms, and his table equipage, and an imposing French 
 valet, in a laced livery, whom for a certain buoyant vivacity in his 
 attentions, he likened to, and called by the name of, La Fleur — all 
 these were of little consequence to my happiness-, but the thought 
 of Bertha, conjoined with that superiority, made me sigh. 
 
 Hastings, however, interested me for his own sake. He was de- 
 cidedly handsome — tall, like his father, and, like him, of a most 
 aristocratic manner, which had grown greatly upon him since he 
 commenced man •, only it was less dignified, from being younger, 
 and of a liveliness which led him into something like flippancy and 
 love of ridicule, acquired at Eton, and by no means repressed by 
 his college. 
 
 In this, as I afterwards discovered, Hastings was much abetted by 
 his friend, Lord Albany, and both were fierce in keeping parvenus 
 at a distance. With such he was never familiar, though, in the 
 spirit of youth, he did not disdain what they both called u roasting 
 a quiz " wherever they found him. 
 
 These, indeed, were after discoveries, fori must say that, in re- 
 gard to myself at this meeting, nothing seemed more genuine than 
 the manner in which he opened himself to me as his early friend 
 and school-fellow, accompanied, however, as we shall see, with both 
 fastidiousness and levity, which denoted any thing but the sober 
 seriousness of thought and feeling upon which our early friendship 
 had been seemingly founded. 
 
 Sedbergh, and its great master, and young mistresses (whose 
 bony ankles and red elbows were not forgotten, any more than their 
 father's enthusiasm for schoolmasters), gave ample scope to his 
 powers of ridicule. 
 
 I own, though I laughed at his sallies, I could not help, at the 
 same time, being struck with that change from the softer and more 
 natural tone of conversation in which Hastings had seemed once so 
 glad to indulge. I endeavoured to recal this tone 5 talked of the 
 
58 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 greal elm before the school-house door, under whose shade we had 
 read together, and of the secluded lanes, where we had walked and 
 plucked blackberries together, and where we had vowed eternal 
 friendship to one another. I also particularly (and I own designedly) 
 reminded him of his generous opinions at that time, on the equaliz- 
 ing nature of friendship in general, and how he laughed at all 
 worldly distinctions. 
 
 A curling sort of smile played round his mouth when he replied 
 to this ebullition, "My dear Cliff (for so he used to call me), I 
 perceive you have preserved all your charming simplicity 5 and all 
 you have recalled was certainly very delightful at the lime, and 
 would be so again, if we were again in Crim Tartary (so he now 
 called our northern village). But this, like many other things, is 
 one of the ' has beens.' " 
 
 This startled me, and I now began to think, not pleasantly, that 
 my tutor might be in the right. 
 
 " The world," Hastings continued, " is the world, and a strange 
 one it is, as you will find when, like me, you have been six months 
 here. I can scarcely ask you what you think of it now, on only 
 three or four days' acquaintance, and that among those strange 
 animals you have chosen to herd with at Queen's. 
 
 " Herd with! Animals!" exclaimed I, with emphasis, for I did 
 not like the expressions. 
 
 " O! I cry you mercy," said he, " for I perceive I have called 
 up all the blood of the De Cliffords ; but I beg to assure your lord- 
 ship, that I meant no disparagement to your dignity, or that of 
 Queen Phillippa either 1 ." 
 
 This allusion to my school sobriquet rather annoyed me, but as 
 I thought it mere rattle, and not, I hoped, intended to offend, I 
 forgave it. In fact, it was jealousy alone that made me take the 
 umbrage I did. Had he not been Hastings, or the brother of Ber- 
 tha, I should have laughed at it as heartily as himself. 
 
 Hastings had, however, another advantage over me, exclusive of 
 his superior condition, and near connection with her who engrossed 
 and exercised all my feelings. He seemed deeply initiated in all the 
 mysteries of this new sphere, which I had just entered; and talked 
 freely and quizzingly of tutors, and even of heads of houses jj which 
 to me seemed almost treason. Then as to their females, whom he 
 quizzed too, to my astonishment (as he had the evening before 
 seemed to be engrossed by them) he called them mere pretty fools ; 
 apes of higher models, whom they could never reach ; in fact (as he 
 styled them), mere Brummagem Duchesses. 
 
 Little indeed do these ladies, who perhaps have verses daily made 
 to their eyebrows, and for whose smile there is often contention, 
 
 1 Phillippa, Queen of Edward III., was the foundress of Queen's College, and thcncct 
 the name. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 59 
 
 know the liberties that are taken with them, by those very danglers 
 whose attentions most excite their ambition, perhaps their affection. 
 For they do so for mere amusement, in a place where they look in 
 vain for their equals, and after professing themselves their ad- 
 mirers, laugh at, despise, and leave them. 
 
 When I expressed my surprise at this satire against persons 
 with whom he had appeared so occupied, he laughed it off with a 
 nonchalance which I almost envied, while I blamed it. 
 
 u My dear fellow," said he, 46 what can we do? These are but 
 the 4 sportive tricks' for which, and to court 4 an amorous looking- 
 glass,' the bloody and deformed Richard found that he was not 
 made, and therefore complained that he had 
 
 1 No delight to pass away the time.' 
 
 Hence, to use his own words, as he * could not prove a lover, he 
 was determined to be a villain.' Now, as to nous autres, though 
 we are not villains, and are neither deformed nor bloody, we think 
 we have a right to the sportive tricks denied to crook-backed Ri- 
 chard, and seek a little innocent flirtation to pass away the time. 
 Nay, don't scold, for do I not give chapter and verse for it, out of 
 the best possible authority — your own Shakspeare?" 
 
 This off-hand rattle, though it overpowered, did not convince me 
 that there was not something selfish and even fraudulent, to use 
 Fothergill's stern word, in regard to Miss Meadows, in playing 
 with another's feelings, or even her weakness, for one's own sport, 
 though death to the other parly. 
 
 Seeing I looked serious upon it, my vivacious friend went on — 
 "Come," said he, 44 I see, my grave and reverend signor, that my 
 code of morality does not square with yours, and is disapproved by 
 the sage philosophers of Cumberland and Queen's. Yet I would 
 wager that you cannot convict me of unfair dealing 5 for am I doing 
 more than standing in self-defence ?" 
 
 44 Self-defence?" 
 
 44 Yes! as I will prove to any person of candour, though not per- 
 haps to a fellow of Queen's, or emphatically to that sour tutor of 
 yours, Bothergill, or Fothergill, or whatever his name is, who seems, 
 whenever we see him, to be,jiculnus et inutile lignum, stuck up 
 to frighten us fluttering birds." 
 
 I was more and more astonished, nay horrified at this licentious 
 attack on my tutor, by my once sober and sentimental friend. How- 
 ever, conscious as I then felt myself of my own inferior breeding, 
 I supposed it one of the privileges of a superioris ordinis com- 
 mensalisy and I told him so. 
 
 4 4 No ! indeed," said he, 44 for every one, in this college at least, 
 thinks Fothergill a mere sour krout ; and as to the females, who 
 seem to have won you for their knight, what would you yourself do 
 
60 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 if you saw one of these dashing girls, acting with the permission^ 
 perhaps encouragement, of both her honoured parents, full of a 
 deep design upon your sweet person ? Don't start, for I only mean 
 in a lawful way : indeed no other would suit her purpose, or that 
 of her reverend papa and mamma. Well, upon the strength of her 
 own pretty person, and a sort of fashion about her from putting her 
 clothes on well, she has become the toast of the university, from 
 
 Christ Church down to 1 beg pardon, I must not say Queen's, 
 
 but, for illustration sake, will specify Alban Hall." 
 
 Somewhat hurt, I bowed my thanks for sparing my college pride; 
 yet I was amused, and though at the same time startled, I continued 
 to listen. 
 
 "Well," added he, "this acknowledged College Princess, not 
 unnaturally, thinks the whole university, all the doctors, both the 
 proctors, and, what is far belter, all the grand compounders, gentle- 
 men commoners, and even all the noblemen, at her feet. She is 
 the Grand Turk in petticoats, and thinks she may throw her hand- 
 kerchief to whom she pleases. She throws it to me, and if I catch it 
 and play with it, nay keep it for a time, without meaning to pocket 
 it, am I to be blamed for enjoying the amusement she so freely 
 offers? After all, these ladies are mere belles de garnison, and 
 Oxford is in this respect no more than a garrison. A flirtation, 
 therefore, is only a passe-tems on both sides. It is true it ends 
 sometimes in a mariage de garnison, which is proverbial for a 
 mesalliance; but of this I, at least, will not be an example. For be 
 assured, I am not in the least disposed to fall really in love with 
 second-hand people !" 
 
 " I at least admire your superior taste, as well as your prudence," 
 said I, " and your comparison of yourself with bloody Richard, as 
 well as Oxford with country quarters, is singularly illustrative." 
 
 u I thought I should convince you," proceeded he, affecting to 
 take me literally, " and, to recur again to our old master, you will 
 own, ? it is the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard.' " 
 
 Shall I confess that, what with this reckless gaiety, which also sat 
 so easy upon him that he seemed assured of being in the right, and 
 what with (by no means the smallest cause) his vast superiority of 
 condition, now opening upon me more and more, from the licence 
 it seemed to give him, I had nothing to reply, and though I did not 
 descend to the meanness of flattering him by allowing he was right, 
 I was confused enough, or coward enough, not to be able to tell 
 him how he was wrong. I fell into a reverie upon the changes, 
 great and glaring, which the difference of our educations, as well as 
 lots in the world, had occasioned in so short a lime, and sat dumb, 
 and I fear stupid, before this specimen of what I thought the spoiled 
 children of the world. 
 
 Hastings seemed fully conscious of his superiority \ and my feel- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 61 
 
 ing that he was so, gave me no pleasure; so that it was a relief to 
 me when his servant came in with " Mi Lor Albany's compliment, 
 and Monsieur Douce vas wait for to give de lecon of de box." 
 
 "Ha!" said he, u i am summoned, and am afraid must leave 
 you, which I know you will excuse, as you were always a good boy, 
 and regular at lecture." 
 
 So saying, he shook hands cordially enough, and reaching a pair 
 of mufflers, which hung over his chimney-piece, we proceeded 
 down stairs together, he to his noble friend and fellow pupil, to 
 what he called lecture, I to ponder all these novelties, which, in 
 truth, caused me much thought, in a slow and moody retreat to my 
 college. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MORTIFICATIONS AND AFFRONTS FROM INEQUALITY OF RANK. 
 
 The proud man's contumely. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Hamlet. 
 
 " This, then, is Oxford," said I to myself, as I proceeded up a 
 by-way which led to Queen's \ " this my earliest, my dearest friend, 
 the man with whom I was to go through the world \ the brother of 
 Bertha. Ah ! if she were to see or hear him now, would she ap- 
 prove or love him as she did when -." 
 
 The thought did not please, and I strove to banish the recollec- 
 tion of that morning, the most critical and, as I thought, auspicious 
 of my life, when I first viewed her bounding, as I have described 
 her, like a fawn, willingly into his arms, as her beloved brother, 
 esteemed as much as beloved. "No!" said I, "she would not ap- 
 prove ; she could not but blame this mockery of all that is serious 5 
 she was liveliness itself, but never light." 
 
 I hurried on my pace, seeking, perhaps, to get rid of my sub- 
 ject-, then, suddenly stopping, "And yet," I continued," may not 
 all this be assumed? May not there be a fashionable as well as a 
 vulgar slang ? He was not wont to be thus, and he at least had no 
 example for it at home." 
 
 The grave deportment of his father then rose before me 5 the se- 
 rious civility of the domestics, and indeed the regularity and order 
 of the whole house. There were jokes, indeed, too, but they were 
 in Bertha's laughing eyes, and certainly not such jokes as these. 
 
 These reflections brought me, in no very attentive humour, to 
 my lecture with Mr. Fothergill, very different from that with Mr. 
 Douce. He perceived it, and half-reproachingly, half-kindly, ob- 
 
62 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 served, that breakfasting with fine gentlemen was a bad preparation 
 for a lecture. Seeing, however, that I was not only absent, but 
 really not happy, he good-humouredly adjourned my attendance, 
 and said he would resume with me after he had finished with his 
 other pupils. 
 
 Retired to my room, I threw my Plutarch on my table, and my- 
 self on my couch. 
 
 Sterne says of old Shandy, throwing himself sidelong on his bed 
 to meditate Tristram's misfortune, that a horizontal posture alleviates 
 grief. I know not his authority, but as his own is a very good one 
 in all these little matters of feeling, I suppose he is right 5 — for I felt, 
 as I lay on my right side, with my right arm under my head, and 
 jogging my left leg over the other against the frame of the sopha, that 
 my musing, by degrees, got less unpleasant and disturbed. " This 
 can only be a freak of Hastings," said I, " either to amuse himself 
 or banter me. He cannot mean to give himself these airs 5 he has too 
 much real honour, as well as sense, to be the thing he affects." 
 
 I was consoling myself with this thought, when my tutor came 
 in. " You have not gained much by your visit," said he, observing 
 my pensive position, which however, I immediately quitted, out 
 of respect to him. " I see discontent, if not disappointment, in your 
 eye. What ! you have found that Oxford practice accords not with 
 Sedbergh professions. You and your friend are no longer, 
 
 ' Like to a double-cherry, seeming parted, 
 And yet a union in partition.' " 
 
 " Nay, it is not that," said I, " for he was really glad to see me." 
 
 " Yes ! I suppose he begged you to sit down, and did the honours 
 of his breakfast-table most condescendingly. But did he really not 
 make you feel the difference between you?" 
 
 "That I cannot say," answered I. 
 
 " I thought so," said Mr. Fothergill. 
 
 " The difference, however," I continued, " was not what you 
 suspect." I then described to my friendly relation the immense 
 change which I thought I had observed in the manner, mind, and 
 language of my schoolfellow, which distressed me, though I sup- 
 posed it might indicate superior knowledge of the world. 
 
 " Of which knowledge you are jealous," observed Fothergill. 
 
 44 No, no, indeed; but I own I did not like that things which 
 I thought serious, should be laughed at, and myself and college 
 quizzed, while I felt restrained from answering by I know not what 
 fear of his higher condition, and the tone of superiority which this 
 seemed to give him." 
 
 "This is silly, though not unnatural," said Mr. Fothergill, " and 
 must be whipped out of you, or you will be miserable. As for his 
 rattling tone in regard to what you so properly think serious, I 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 could pass that by, as the mere ebullition of a spoiled youth, who 
 thinks he writes man the better for seeming careless of what a man 
 should be. He is afraid of being thought in leading-strings, and af- 
 fects freedom accordingly. But what most alarms me for you is, 
 this friendship of yours, which, being what is called an unequal 
 alliance — a thing I never saw come to good, but generally to harm 
 — I would, by all means, advise you to set yourself against." 
 
 " That seems cruel and unnatural," answered I, <c not to say 
 unreasonable and ungrateful, especially as, though I see a con- 
 temptuous manner as to things and persons in general, he gave me 
 no reason to think I was among them. Ought I not at least to wait 
 till I do?" 
 
 " It is belter to prevent than cure," replied Fothergill. " It will 
 be bitter for you perhaps to take leave of this quality youngster it 
 will be more so to be left by him. And now for Plutarch." 
 
 We then proceeded to lecture, and in the unbridled and profligate 
 eccentricities of Alcibiades, leading to every sort of crime, he made 
 me read a proof that high gifts, when unrestrained by principle, so 
 far from conferring happiness, produce nothing but mortification, 
 humiliation, disappointment, and death. This, and the contempt it 
 bred in me for every thing like mob rule, mob justice, and mob 
 leaders, did me lasting service. 
 
 Here, however, Fothergill displayed his well-balanced mind, 
 and his able manner of directing a youthful judgment. For, seeing 
 the indignation, not to say hatred, with which the democracy of 
 Athens inspired me, he bade me take care not to draw general con- 
 clusions from partial examples, but wait the whole scope of history : 
 and in particular to weigh the conduct and character of kings, before 
 I decided against a government by the people. Yet Fothergill was no 
 democrat. 
 
 The lecture over, I was again left alone to contemplate my exist- 
 ing position-, but my contemplations were not agreeable. The new 
 world I was in did not open upon me auspiciously. I had set my heart 
 upon renewing my old fondness for Hastings. I loved him for him- 
 self, and still more for his sister. A change on his part I never thought 
 possible, and, as to inequality, it had never crossed my imagina- 
 tion. My tutor's prognostics, therefore, appeared to me both gloomy 
 and unfounded 5 and though I respected his penetration and expe- 
 rience, I at least knew none of the cases on which he grounded his 
 opinion. Besides, there were exceptions to every thing, and why 
 should not this friendship of mine and Hastings be one of them? 
 
 With the buoyancy and confidence of youth ( for youthful ap- 
 prehensions seldom last long ), I therefore resolved to slight the 
 advice I had received, and sallied forth in the evening, in a frame 
 of mind, without a reason for it, different, lighter and happier, than 
 that of the morning. 
 
64 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 My steps, almost mechanically, directed themselves to the same 
 place, Christ Church Walk (the general promenade of an evening), 
 where I had met Hastings the evening before ; and I met him again. 
 
 He was again with Lord Albany, and one or two more men of 
 figure, and, seeing me advance towards him with the pleasure I really 
 felt at meeting, he appeared again embarrassed. It was not, as I 
 have before said, the embarrassment of an upstart, surprised by a 
 quondam equal in high company, but one which seemed to proceed 
 from displeasure, and a sense of an improper liberty taken ; for, in 
 my untaught manners, I thought only of him, and broke in upon 
 him, caring little for ceremony with his companions. 
 
 He decided at once what to do, and said, "Clifford, a word with 
 you." Then, apologizing to his friends for leaving them a moment, 
 he took me on one side. Having done this, he startled me by 
 saying, with an air of distance, "I perceive, my good friend, that 
 you are so new to this place, and indeed to the world, as to have 
 a great deal to learn, perhaps to unlearn, and it is only due to 
 friendship to tell you of it. You will not lake it ill?" 
 
 " Certainly not," said I, surprised, but neither mortified nor 
 humbled, for I did not know my crime. 
 
 " Good," observed he; u but this is not the place to confer about 
 it at large, and we will fake another opportunity. Meantime, do 
 not misunderstand me if I tell you that it is against good breeding, 
 as well as custom, for a stranger to intrude himself upon persons 
 he does not know, especially if they be as far above him in rank as 
 those gentlemen whom you have discomposed are above you ; and 
 this, though it be to greet an old friend and school companion. 
 You have a right lo seek me, and to be even 'hail fellow well met,' 
 with me, if you please, and in your place, but not if I am in the 
 midst of company who can know nothing of you, and to whose 
 acquaintance perhaps you would not, and ought not, to pretend. 
 It is necessary I should give you Ihis hint for your own guidance, 
 in a place where you are yet a stranger; but it will be a good rule 
 all the world over. Come and see me as often as you please, but 
 do not force the notice of others. Lord Albany, with whom you saw 
 I was engaged, is a peer of the realm." 
 
 I was so confused, nay, astounded, at this speech, that I had not 
 a word at command to reply to it 5 seeing which, he touched my 
 finger, and saying, he hoped we should meet again at a time more 
 convenient, turned back to rejoin his company, leaving me over- 
 whelmed with astonishment, indignation, and grief. 
 
 To recover, I took refuge in Merton Gardens, which I had begun 
 to love for their beauty and retirement, and, throwing myself on a 
 bench, gave way to uncertain, though very melancholy, thoughts, 
 till the evening began to shut in, and twilight suprised me before 
 I could well be said to have recovered from my confusion. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 65 
 
 In this situation I was roused by the sound of voices from persons 
 advancing, and plainly made out from one of them — u It seems 
 that he is a hanger-on of Charles's family, and hence the acquaint- 
 ance." 
 
 This was all I could distinguish, but it was quite enough to arouse 
 my jealousy, for of course there was but one Charles in the world. 
 
 I started on my legs to ascertain from whom the words proceed- 
 ed, and of two persons who were conversing, one, by his gold tuft, 
 I instantly recollected to be Lord Albany. This left me no doubt 
 that Hastings was the Charles alluded to, and 1 the " hanger-on" 
 designated. 
 
 It is strange what an instant additional tumult these two little 
 words excited in a breast already the seat of jealous resentment. 
 Adieu to the happy composure which 1 had looked for from the 
 garden, and soft evening. The ugly epithet I had heard redoubled 
 my concern. But though mortified, resentful, angry, I was yet not 
 fool enough to allow my feelings to explode, by accosting the 
 speaker, as I at first thought of doing ; for I had sense enough to 
 reflect, that even if it was proved that Hastings was the person in 
 question, it followed not that there were no others to whom the 
 epithet of hanger-on might really belong, not to mention that it 
 was totally inapplicable to me. I therefore for the moment pocketed 
 the supposed affront, though it gave my heart a convulsion, and 
 returned home, torn by a thousand contending feelings. 
 
 My night was hot and restless. Am I that thing? said I, a thou- 
 sand times over. Am I his servant, or at least his dependent, and not 
 his friend? — nay, his equal? I would add in a fit of honest pride — 
 equal by his own account, from being his friend? Then it came 
 across me to refine upon the phrase, and I found some alleviation 
 that it was only as the hanger-on of his family, not of himself, 
 that I was characterised. 
 
 There was more comfort in this than at first appeared, for was 
 not Bertha part of that family, and would not that make depend- 
 dence, or even servitude, sweet? This pleased, and I again fastened 
 upon the passage I had early applied to her, and never forgotten : — 
 
 " To be your fellow, 
 You may deny me, but I will be your servant, 
 Whether you will or no." 
 
 This hushed me into calm, and I fell into a sleep, but of short 
 duration, for I woke from a dream any thing but pleasant. I thought 
 that Foljarnbe Hall was lighted up, and resounded with feasting and 
 revelry, in honour or Lord Albany's marriage with Bertha, from 
 which I fled with horrors, like those created by an incubus. 
 
 To recover myself, I rose with (he light, and opening my window 
 
66 
 
 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 to let in a cooler air, was refreshed by it both in body and mind. 
 Thoroughly awake, I seriously revolved (it had become seriously 
 necessary) my critical position with Hastings. 
 
 A hanger-on could not be a friend, yet to dwindle into a mere 
 acquaintance with him was impossible. I must either continue to 
 love him, and be loved by him, or estrange myself from him al- 
 together. The latter made me tremble, for estrangement from him 
 was always associated with banishment from his sister. But the 
 prophecy of Fothergiil in respect to unequal friendships and mesal- 
 liances had now derived much force from Hastings's late address 
 to me, and the critical words I had overheard. I had sense enough 
 therefore to discard from the account all my favourite prejudices of 
 the blood of the Be Cliffords and Bardolfes, and reducing myself to 
 what I was — a yeoman in station — resolved to assert the proper 
 self respect (I had almost said dignity) which belongs to every free 
 man, whatever his condition. 
 
 The rising sun found me in this improved temper. It was 
 summer, the sky was brilliant, the birds sang, and I had a beautiful 
 view from my windows of the peaceful dignity of Maudlin Tower, 
 bosomed high in the tufted trees that surrounded it. "That tower," 
 said I, " ought to be the emblem of every man happy in himself. 
 It is full of quiet harmony; independent, yet unpretending-, alike 
 removed from meretricious ornament and the rudeness of poverty. 
 So ought we to be in the world, and so, if heaven favour me, I 
 will be." 
 
 I lost myself in this sober but cheerful train of thought, mix t with 
 a pleasing solemnity, which the view of the beautiful simplicity of 
 this edifice, ''looking tranquillity," with me always generated. 
 In an instant, I felt equal to Hastings, or Lord Albany himself, in 
 the eye of my Maker, and the inequalities of life no longer vexed me. 
 
 There are moments now and then in one's history peculiarly 
 precious, either from some sudden relief from care, some subsiding 
 into calm after tumult, some new light acquired, or mental victory, 
 which are ever afterwards looked at by memory with soothing 
 satisfaction. This was one of them. Young as I was, I had the seeds 
 of unaffected piety always within me, and had accustomed myself 
 to consider all mankind as the children of one common parent, who 
 made no difference in Hie consequence he gave, or the care he took 
 of them. In this point of view, prouder men than Lord Albany, or 
 Foljambe (if Foljambe was proud), sunk to a level with even 
 humbler men than myself, and the epithet which had so disturbed 
 me, disturbed me no longer. "I will at least shew Hastings," said 
 I, "that his estimate of me is false 5 I will renounce this unequal 
 alliance." 
 
 Thus my tutor obtained a triumph. And yet there was perhaps 
 loo much pride in forming the resolution. I was not calm enough in. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 6? 
 
 making il. I should have been more really independent, had it been 
 attended with less passion. 
 
 So thought the cool and rational Fothergill himself, when I told 
 him, as I did, all that I had overheard, and all I had resolved, after 
 the distressing night I had passed. He greatly approved, nay, was 
 somewhat affected, at the manner and the cause of my recovering 
 myself, which I did not conceal from him, bat, to my surprise, did 
 not, as I expected, commend my resolution to break immediately 
 with Hastings. On the contrary, he exclaimed with Cato, 
 
 " Let us appear nor rash, nor diffident." 
 
 "Though I thought it right to caution your sanguine temper 
 against the expectation of what so often fails, and what I have almost 
 constantly seen frittered away in this struggling arena of ours, — ■ 
 the continuance of school friendships between parties of unequal 
 conditions, — still I would not renounce it by a downright breach, 
 nor be the person to begin the estrangement, without palpable cause. 
 If Hastings is the Alcibiades of which he gives so many tokens, il 
 will not be long before he will afford you ample opportunity to 
 enforce your resolution. But even Alcibiades had some redeeming 
 qualities-, therefore, give even the devil fair play : wait on your 
 oars, and see what will come of it." 
 
 I own this discomposed, as well as surprised me , for I not only 
 expected the highest eulogies on my stoicism, but having braced 
 myself up to the measure, as necessary to my peace for the long 
 term to which I looked forward at Oxford, I was almost sorry to 
 have rny firmness shaken, as it was, by this want of unction, as I 
 thought, in commending it. The mere wavering which it caused 
 brought me back to Sedbergh and Foljambe Park, and both had 
 such habitual possession of me, nay, had been so entirely the only 
 interest that absorbed me, that the effort to dislodge it seemed un- 
 natural, and I returned to it with the renovated and increased 
 animation which generally attends a reconciliation after a lover's 
 quarrel. 
 
 All this while, Foljambe knew nothing of his influence over my 
 projected conduct. He knew not, perhaps cared not, for the tumuli 
 he had caused, for the wound he had given, or the salve I had 
 endeavoured to apply to it, by resolving to throw him off. How r 
 often does this attend us in life, and could we see into one another's 
 minds, how many burning struggles, mistakes, imaginary affronts, 
 or unwarrantable expectations, might be avoided, how many friend- 
 ships remain unbroken ! 
 
 It was too true, as the sage Fothergill told me, I was born with 
 loo sensitive a nature. " You are proud," said he, " which I do not 
 altogether object to. Let your pride alone, and it may do you no 
 harm, nay, it may keep you right under temptations and trials, of 
 
68 BE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 which you will have enough here; but once give it the reins — lei 
 it lead you wrong, or plunge you into false ambition — that is, make 
 you seek a place that does not belong to you, and which this very 
 pride, well regulated, would make you avoid — you immediately 
 become the sport of those whom you condescend to court. 'Optat 
 ep/iippia bos' contains a useful lesson, and the anguish of Wolsey 
 is unpitied, when he exclaims, 
 
 ' My high-blown pride at length broke under me.' " 
 
 Such were the lessons of this excellent man. Whether I profited 
 by them or not, remains to be seen; but the pride he had noticed, 
 and even recommended, made me assure him, with perhaps too 
 much quickness, that he was mistaken if he thought I could court 
 any body, and that if I seemed so eager in watching Hastings's 
 conduct, it was only because of old affection, and quite as the equal 
 he had taught me to consider myself. " His friend," said I, " I may 
 still be 5 his hanger-on I never will be. Once convinced that he 
 thinks I am so, in that instant I am restored. 1 ' 
 
 "I desire nothing belter," said FothergilL 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 J DISCOVER MORE OF THE REAL CHARACTER OF FOLJAMRE HASTINGS.— CROSS EXAMINED 
 BY MY TUTOR AS TO MY LOVE FOR BERTHA. 
 
 Breathe his faults so quaintly 
 That they may seem the taints of liberty— 
 The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind. 
 
 Siiakspeare.— Hamlel, 
 The worst fault you have is to be in love. 
 
 'Tis a fault I would not change for all your virtue. 
 
 Id.— As You Like It. 
 
 For one or two days after this conversation I kept close to my 
 college, though my mind often wandered after the person who so 
 much interested me, as in truth he did many others, though in a 
 manner far different. For by this time I had learned, in regard to 
 him, what astonished, as much as it distressed me. I thought I had 
 a right to know h'im well, and though of an eager character, run- 
 ning often to extremes, a strong feeling of friendship and a taste for 
 Setters had, at Sedbergh, seemed the order of the day. But from 
 what I now learned, I found it must have been owing to the want 
 of opportunity and competitors, in more stirring scenes, that he thus 
 settled down into the sentimental and philosophic youth he seemed 
 to be. He disdained most of his school-mates, and loved to associa^ 5 
 with no one but me, who, though sufficiently ' commofo dentro*' 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 69 
 
 was generally u cheto fuor." Wilh me, there could be no rivalry 
 in anything but the acquisition of learning 5 and though the compe- 
 tition of schoolboys in every thing else is fierce enough ( witness 
 his battle wilh Ramshorn ), that which is confined to their books is 
 seldom of a loud character. 
 
 Judge then my surprise, to be told by many that, though but six 
 months in the University, Hastings had already attained to almost 
 the summit of notoriety. I mean not as to learning \ though in this 
 also he was so little deficient, that in his themes, but particularly 
 his verses— thanks to Eton — he had won the praise of his tutors. 
 Wilh this, however, he was little content 5 for, strange to say of the 
 quiet person he had been at Sedbergh, — to be, par excellence, the 
 renowner of Oxford, seemed to be his great ambition. 
 
 Hence he was always the first of his clique, whatever their object. 
 At the tennis-court he could play the marker without odds • in the 
 field he led the hunt 5 and on the water was perfect at the oars. At 
 Bullinglon, in summer, he presided over cricket 5 and at Port 
 Meadow, in winter, was inimitable in skaiting. He gave suppers to 
 ihe young nobility in his rooms, and pic-nics to the ladies in Bagley 
 Wood. The old English game of single-stick was not then quite 
 worn out, and he actually had won a hat upon a public stage at Abing- 
 don, in a perilous contest, not without blood, of twelve on a side, 
 between the two counties of Oxford and Berks. The hat he brought 
 thai very evening in triumph, and laid it at the feet of one of three 
 mistresses who had been given him by the public voice. 
 
 In fencing and boxing with Mr. Douce, nobody went beyond him, 
 and nobody, except Lord Albany, could come near his excellence 
 in pistol firing at a mark. 
 
 These two were rival " renowners" in every thing, but espe- 
 cially in this, — in which they practised every day, wilh such equal 
 success, that the numerous spectators, who assembled to witness 
 their skill, hoped they would never quarrel, as, if they did, it would 
 be impossible for either of them to escape. 
 
 Then again he played nobly at billiards 5 and he would sit up half 
 the night at whist, or the bottle. But the acme of his fame was ac- 
 quired at Ascot, where he actually won a plate run for by gentlemen 
 who rode their own horses 5 and that the renown of it might not be 
 lost, he returned in the jockey dress and cap in which he had run, 
 from the heath to the very gate of Christ Church, to the astonish- 
 ment and dismay of all the officials. 
 
 This, however, had like to have cost him dear, for there was an 
 intention to expel him for riding a race 5 but he pleaded so stoutly, 
 though so respectfully, that he had had leave to attend the course, 
 and was not therefore within the jurisdiction of the college, that the 
 plea was allowed 5 and having declared that the degradation of riding 
 through the streets in jockey costume was mere absence of mind. 
 
70 DK CLIFFORD; 
 
 without intention to break rules, moreover expressing sorrow, and 
 being wilhal a sort of favourite, from his high station, figure, and 
 talents, he was let off for a very heavy imposition, and confined to 
 college till it was accomplished I 
 
 Even here renown did not abandon him ; for he gave the task to 
 two servitors to perform for him, and paid them with such a num- 
 ber of guineas, that his love of fame was gratified to the last. 
 
 These things came out by degrees, and had been the talk of the 
 different colleges before I came, and this disposition and conduct 
 were what caused Mr. Fothergill to liken him to Alcibiades. My 
 astonishment at hearing them may be conceived, but I was also 
 grieved at the account, because it too forcibly proved that the dis- 
 parity of our dispositions was at least equal to that of our stations, 
 and that friendship with such a man, if not already lost, could not 
 continue. On the other hand, Lord Albany was his constant com- 
 panion, aider and abetter in these excesses, and how in any thing 
 could I compare with Lord Albany ? 
 
 The thought sank deep into my soul, but still deeper for the con- 
 viction which it gave, that the little evanescent and almost imper- 
 ceptible hope (imperceptible even to myself), that my intimacy 
 with the brother might lead to one with the sister — that this hope, 
 I say, was lost for ever. My misery was complete. 
 
 This was not unperceived by my observing tutor, who told me he 
 plainly saw, not only that I was much changed in manner and spi- 
 rits, but that there must be a far deeper cause for it, than the fear 
 of losing a mere school friendship. I allowed this to be truth, and 
 as concealment, simulation, or dissimulation, were no parts of my 
 character, he soon got the whole out of me. 
 
 The impression this made upon his kindly feelings — kindly^ 
 though often stern in his decisions — was serious indeed. 
 
 " My good fellow," said he, u I now see to what more than half 
 the interest you feel for your school-fellow is owing. I knew not 
 that there was a female in the case, that female Hastings's sister, 
 the descendant of the Plantagenets, and the grand-daughter of a 
 German prince. This is no trifle, and requires more than momen- 
 tary deliberation to advise upon it. Meantime, take my word for it, 
 this extreme susceptibility of yours will go near to ruin you." 
 
 I asked if this was all the consolation he could give me? He 
 paused, and said it was certainly something like the comfort of Job's 
 friends ; and that he would help me if he could, but feared I had 
 not heroism enough to conquer the difficulty. 
 I asked what heroism he meant. 
 
 " To lay the axe to the root of the tree, and cut the whole down 
 in forgetfulness j which, after all," said he, " is not so impossible." 
 I shook my head. 
 
 64 Why, you do not say that you ever told your love, much less 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 71 
 
 what encouragement, if any, you have received from her. Has she 
 over " 
 
 "Oh! no! no! no!" said I, interrupting him with anxiety*, 
 she was good, gracious, and condescending, but not more to me 
 than all others — and when I think of her bright radiance, 
 4 It were all one 
 That I should love a bright particular star, 
 And think to wed it, she is so above me.' " 
 
 I said this with so much emotion, faltering in my speech as it es- 
 caped, that the good Fothergill was affected 5 his rough exterior 
 gave way 5 he look my hand, and his hard features softened into more 
 than common fellow-feeling but he told me that nothing but a total 
 and complete banishment of the very name, and of course all that 
 bore it, from my memory, could work any cure. 46 Were you like 
 her brother himself," said he, " and could you, like him, fly from 
 flower to flower, and amuse yourself with 'beautes de garnison,' or 
 seek the thousand diversions of thought which the ambition of being 
 a " renowner" occasions, I might have some hopes for you; but 
 you are jeune homme a par fait amour; you walk gardens and 
 court cloisters, rather than the High Street or the cricket- ground 5 
 you prefer sighing to merriment \ you are like Jacques, you 6 do 
 love melancholy better than laughing,' and the hold the brother has 
 upon you is cherished a thousand times more fondly, because in the 
 brother is cherished the thought of the sister." 
 
 Though I felt every word of this to be true, and mourned that 
 it should be so, yet I could not help wondering where my tutor had 
 got this penetration, on a subject to which, from his habits, man- 
 ners, and appearance, it should seem he must have been a stranger. 
 But at any rate, the reasoning was good, and the power, only, not 
 the will, was wanting. For I found myself unequal to the promise 
 lie demanded of me, to use all means and appliances to drive the 
 whole family from my memory. 
 
 " It will smooth your path here ," said he, " as well as there ; 
 for this unhappy accident ( as I may call it ), which has so lifted you 
 above yourself, has placed you every way in a false position, and 
 your intimacy with Mr. Hastings, even if renewed, which is doubt- 
 ful, will only be pregnant with mortification; while to cherish your 
 feelings for this young lady must plunge you in despair." 
 
 u There is not a word you have said," I answered, " to which 
 1 do not defer. And yet " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 u The despair would be welcome, in preference to oblivion ; and 
 I would rather be hopeless in my love, than not love Bertha." 
 
 "I give you up," said Fothergill, somewhat ruffled, and he 
 walked away. 
 
 This doubled me : and not the less because he was right. Then, 
 
72 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 again, though he was my cousin, and had shown himself my real 
 friend, he was also my tutor, and a high college official. But I was a 
 real lover, and to a real lover, even without hope, and though his 
 mistress may even be ignorant of his passion, the dream of that 
 mistress is often sweeter than liberty itself. 
 
 Fothergiil, however, had been too abrupt. He was perhaps him- 
 self invulnerable, and therefore hard to others. I sulked also, and 
 walked away to 44 commune with my own heart, in my chamber," 
 though not to be still *, rather indeed the reverse • for in my cham- 
 ber I did not stay ten minutes, but sallied forth into the town, un- 
 knowing where to go. 
 
 My steps, however, were soon directed, for I met my friend's 
 French valet, who, accosting me with the consequential national po- 
 liteness of a French valet of fashion, said he had brought me " von 
 letter from his master, 3e jeune Seigneur Hastings, who vas a leetel 
 indispose, and wish mosh for de company of monsieur, for one petit 
 quart d'heure." 
 
 Recollecting the preceding evening's conversation, my heart 
 leaped up at this, as it looked like an alteration of sentiment. 
 " I am sorry he is ill," said I. 
 
 44 Not ver ill," replied the valet, 44 mais il veut bien se fortifier 
 contre 1'ennui, avec monsieur." 
 
 " Has he not his friend, Lord Albany, with him?" asked I. 
 
 44 Mi lor," replied La Fleur (for so, as I have said, his master 
 had christened him), "was gone to Blenheim, with a party of jeunes 
 dames, to visit the chateau of le grand Malbrook, and jeune Mon- 
 sieur Hastings was au desespoir that he no go too, pour cause — " 
 
 Here La Fleur shook his head almost as significantly as Lord 
 Burleigh. 
 
 " And what cause ?" asked I, with curiosity. 
 
 44 Von leetel (how you call it?) imposition," replied the valet, 
 " for which he is aux arrets, and can no stir $ but monsieur will 
 open his billet and will see all about dat, sans doute." 
 
 It was time I should 5 but meanwhile I dismissed the valet with 
 my compliments, and I would come directly. 
 
 I then opened the note, and read as follows : 
 
 My dear Orestes. 
 44 Our ruler has had the audacity to confine me, because I refused 
 to obey a nonsensical order, that none of us should attend the race 
 ball last night. What makes it worse, all my friends have flown off 
 in different directions. Pray, therefore, come, if only for half-an- 
 hour. A sober Queen's man for an associate and counsellor may 
 perhaps redeem me with the tyrant, who has been most pragmati- 
 cal in this matter. 44 Yours, 
 
 u Pylades." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 7$ 
 
 This allusion to our school nicknames by no means displeased 
 me. It is impossible, I said, to myself, that he wishes to forget old 
 friendship ; Fothergill is wrong : — and I quickened my pace to 
 Christ Church. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 i TELL MY MIND TO FOLJAMBE. — THE CONSEQUENCES OF IT. 
 
 That you have wronged me doth appear in this. 
 
 Must I stand and crouoh 
 Under your testy humour? By the gods, 
 You shall digest the venom of your spleen .' 
 
 Though it split you. 
 
 Shkksv^Pl-ke.— Julius Ccesar. 
 
 My old friend the porter received me at the gate with still im- 
 proved obsequiousness (another barometer of the surrounding at- 
 mosphere} 5 for La Fleur, with whom he had struck up an alliance 
 ([ suppose not unequal, and therefore likely to last), had informed 
 him of the message to me, as he did of every thing else concerning 
 his master, and this made the shrewd janitor suppose that I could be 
 no common person. He treated me accordingly. 
 
 For my own part, I no longer played the meek freshman of 
 Queen's, but received his salutation as my mere due, and passed on 
 with a sort of calm dignity (at least what was intended for such), 
 which I took no pains to repress, and it lasted all the way into 
 Hastings's presence, of whom I felt, or thought I did, less and less 
 afraid. I at any rate resolved to probe both his heart and character 
 to the bottom. If he really loves, and does not disdain me, thought 
 I, I will make him disclose himself unequivocally 5 if he is what 
 Fothergill thinks, and I am sacrificed either to the caprice or pride 
 of Alcibiades, it is lime to show him how I value the one or the other. 
 
 With this, assuming a determined air, I suffered La Fleur to 
 usher me to his master, in a humour which perhaps augured little 
 good to the explanations I sought, — as was proved by my reception 
 of the first words he uttered when he saw me. 
 
 " I have sent for you? said he, u as a man I could depend upon, 
 in the absence of Lord Albany, and I am sure you will serve me 
 faithfully in a point in which I find my honour concerned." 
 
 He said this with a sort of lofty sternness, which he could assume, 
 and totally free from that flippant tone which had characterized our 
 last meeting. In fact, he seemed much impressed with the wrong 
 which he supposed had been done him. His language, however, did 
 not satisfy me. 
 
74 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 So, then, thought 1, he sends for me, as a patron to his client, 
 in the very spirit of patrician arrogance, and only because his brother 
 patrician is absent. This will never do. I however answered, not 
 over pleased, S* 1 await your commands \ who is it that has offended 
 your honour? " 
 
 44 The tyrant of this place," he replied : 44 first, in refusing me a 
 favour (a paltry one), which I condescended to ask, when I might 
 have enjoyed what I wanted at less inconvenience, without asking. 
 Next, in abusing his power to punish me for acting in despite of 
 his refusal. You are ignorant of the ambiguous position a man is 
 in, when thrown with another to whom he is superior in point of 
 station in the world, inferior in the little circle of official powers. 
 But though you may not be a judge of this, from want of oppor- 
 tunity to observe it among your own associates, I know you to have 
 a great deal of common sense, and it is to that, as an old acquaint- 
 ance, I wish to appeal." 
 
 44 Old acquaintance /" thought I. 14 What, then, has become of 
 friendship ! " I however bowed my thanks for his condescension in 
 allowing me common sense, although, in other respects, so inca- 
 pable of appreciating a case between persons of such high degree. 
 
 Thus we set out ill 5 for he began by undervaluing, and therefore 
 by indisposing to his service, the counsellor he had chosen. Hence, 
 I was somewhat stiff in my reply. 
 
 44 The situation you have described," said I, 44 and of which you 
 say, truly, [ can be no judge, being so inferior myself, and so want- 
 ing experience of the ways of great men, may be one of difficulty, 
 but surely not what you have called it, ambiguous. I suppose your 
 course is clear, and you have nothing to do but to obey. Indeed, I 
 have always understood, that to learn obedience when young, if only 
 to know how to command when old, is one of the objects of edu- 
 cation." 
 
 44 Very sententious, truly ! " replied Hastings, 44 and worthy the 
 sage of Queen s, to say nothing of the disciple of old Grackenlhorpe. 
 Why, I should have thout it was that arch pedagogue and orna^ 
 ment of Coomberland himself who was speaking to me." 
 
 4 ' He would have been a-beller adviser," said 1 5 44 but you asked 
 my opinion, and I have given it, though only in generalibus ; for 
 as yet I know nothing of the case on which you do me the honour 
 to consult me." 
 
 He measured me with his eye, as if surprised at my formality 5 
 then, after some hesitation, observed, 44 You are right, quite right, 
 and perhaps it would have been best not to have troubled you. Yet 
 I wished to know what you advocates for obedience to those dressed 
 in the little brief authority, for which, no doubt, you are already a 
 candidate, could say in support of the veriest petty tyranny that ever 
 was perpetrated." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 75 
 
 He then informed me, that Lord Albany's sister, Lady Charlotte 
 Saville, having come to the races, he had engaged to dance with 
 her at the ball in the evening, spile of a college order, that no 
 under-graduate should attend it 5 which little impediment he might 
 have jumpl if he had pleased, undergoing, he supposed, a slight 
 punishment, but that, out of respect, he thought it best to ask per- 
 mission ; notwithstanding which, to his astonishment, it was re- 
 fused, with the addition of a reason still more surprising, that if 
 granted to him it must be granted to others — " a want of tact," said 
 he, " which T did not expect from one who affects to understand so 
 well what is due to rank and station. But this it is to expect gentle- 
 manly practice from plebeian theorists." 
 
 64 Your notion then is," said I, dryly, that to make no distinc- 
 tion, where all have equal right, is a plebeian theory." 
 
 "A man can have little knowledge of the world," replied he, 
 curling his lip, 64 who does not see that such distinctions are always 
 made in society, and none but a narrow pedant would use his au- 
 thority thus. I therefore scouted his reason, and went with Albany 
 to the ball, spite of his refusal." 
 
 " Lord Albany, then, broke the order also?" 
 
 "No! luckily he had taken his degree, ' Honoris causa,' three 
 days before, and therefore came not within it." 
 
 "And the event?" 
 
 " The event is, that, I have a heavy imposition, which I shall 
 not perform 5 am confined to college till I have finished it, and am 
 rusticated for the two next terms." 
 
 I suppose I looked alarmed, for he cried, " What, does this 
 frighten you? If so, how will you be able to form an opinion of 
 what I mean to do? >? 
 
 "Which is"— 
 
 " To laugh at the decree, and instantly leave the place, not- 
 withstanding the sentence of confinement, so that I shall never 
 return." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " I exclaimed, " without consulting your fa- 
 ther ! What will he — what will your admirable sister say?" 
 
 " As to my father," he replied, " if I consulted him, which I 
 shall not do, he would let me do as I please ; and for my sister, 
 she is a little fool, but not such a fool as to oppose me." 
 
 I was horror-struck, for, with respect to his sister, what he had 
 uttered seemed little less than blasphemy. In truth, I was shocked 
 with the marked, and to me, sudden change that had apparently 
 taken place in his whole character-, — so little can we judge of its 
 reality, while latent from want of incentive to call it into action. 
 
 His affair with Ramshorn, indeed, I had always remembered, as 
 a proof of a determined spirit, in whatever he undertook ; but J 
 neither knew nor believed that he would allow it to govern him 
 
76 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 in every thing, good or bad, according to the turn he might lake. 
 Here he seemed the strangest compound of a fierce rebel and proud 
 aristocrat that could be imagined. I knew not, in my then simplicity, 
 that such a thing could be. I afterwards found in the world, espe- 
 cially in the political world, that nothing was more common. 
 
 " Well," said he, observing my hesiiation, " I see this troubles 
 you. When you have recovered yourself, I trust you will honour 
 me with your approbation." 
 
 Convinced that he was decidedly wrong, I did no such thing- 
 and both hurt and offended at the tone he had taken in regard to 
 me, and in communicating a resolution, rather than requesting ad- 
 vice, I told him so in terms. 
 
 What," said he, "is the blood of the Cliffords still on the qui 
 vwe ? What will you do in the world, where perhaps it will not 
 be much regarded, if it so easily boil over?" 
 
 " Act with the same sincerity," said I, " that I now shew you, 
 when I would restrain you, if I could, from putting yourself more 
 and more in the wrong," 
 
 " If I have been wrong," said he contemptuously, " it has been 
 in consulting one who, from his situation, is not a proper judge." 
 
 I bowed my thanks again, in a manner to shew that I thought 
 him rude; upon which, in a tone somewhat altered, he proceeded, 
 " you think me then originally wrong." 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " And your advice is" 
 
 " Not to think yourself above legitimate control, who show that 
 you cannot control yourself." 
 
 " Very good and sententious all this, Mr. Clifford." 
 
 u On the contrary," I continued, " redeem yourself by submis- 
 sion." 
 
 44 Submission ! By heavens ! this is loo much. — 'You know that 
 you are Brutus who speak this.' I looked not for it when I sent 
 
 for you." 
 
 " Or probably you would not have sent. Eh! Is that so, Hast- 
 ings? Was I to be consulted merely to confirm you in an error of 
 conduct? But I ought to tell you more-, for I have thought bitterly 
 and cruelly of the change which there too obviously is between us. 
 I never was Brutus, or am certainly so no longer. — The boy whom 
 you deemed worthy of your affection when upon a footing with you 
 in the desert, is no longer so in the peopled world, where you may 
 chuse your companions. But though this may be true, injustice 
 should never be done, and that boy, because honoured by your 
 family as their visitor, should not be represented to those compa- 
 nions as your c hanger on.' " 
 
 Having made this effort, I seized my hat, and motioned as if to 
 leave the room ; but astonished, and almost confounded, he advanced 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 71 
 
 towards the door, declaring in a less loud tone, that he knew not 
 what I meant, and that I should not go till I had explained. 
 
 Angered at what 1 supposed to be an evasion, though it perhaps 
 might be real forgelfulness — 44 Do not," said I, 44 add affectation 
 of ignorance to the injustice I complain of. The condescension of 
 your family I shall ever acknowledge 5 my friendship with you has 
 been the delight of my life ; but ask yourself if I ever was theirs 
 or your 'hanger on,' and add to the question whether you have mi 
 so represented me to Lord Albany ?" 
 
 I then left the room, and was upon the stairs, when he followed 
 me and cried, " Stay ! return ! this must not be." 
 
 Not so resentful as to be unwilling to listen to a man whom I 
 felt I still loved, and who might have repented of his fault, I 
 instantly obeyed^ and once more found myself with him in private, 
 He began immediately. 
 
 44 Though I might slight much of what you have said to me, 
 evidently most unwarrantably, yet your last surmise is loo deroga- 
 tory to my honour to pass unheeded. I told you I did not under- 
 stand you, and I told you true. How you got at any thing from 
 Lord Albany respecting any supposed conversation of mine, is to 
 me extraordinary, as there is not and cannot be the least intercourse 
 between you and him 5 but you have mentioned a particular ex- 
 pression, as coming from me in regard to you, which, if correct, 
 you have a right to resent, but which, denying it to be true, I have 
 also a right to have explained. Relate, if you please, the authority 
 upon which it is founded." 
 
 44 Allowing," returned I with some spleen, 44 allowing to the full, 
 your intimation, that there is not and cannot be any intercourse 
 between so great a person as Lord Albany and myself— a hint not 
 necessary, I assure you, to remind me of my inferiority — (he red- 
 dened much at this)' — I reply to your question, that the authority 
 was his own." 
 
 44 Impossible ! I desire particulars." 
 
 44 You shall have them and I related what I had heard, and 
 what any body else might have heard, in the walk in Merlon Gar- 
 dens 5 adding, my reasoning upon it, that I could have been the 
 only person meant. 
 
 He admitted the inference, but denied the correctness of the re- 
 presentation. 
 
 44 Clifford," said he, 44 1 declare before heaven, thatasyou never 
 deserved the appellation, so it never was applied to you by me, It 
 must have been Albany's own incorrect construction of what I may 
 have related of our acquaintance, and your visit to Foljambe Park,' 1 
 
 44 Hastings," I said, 44 1 believe you • because, however I may 
 lament the change there evidently has been made in you already 
 T)y the world, I believe that you are too proud to assert a falsehood," 
 
78 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 " I am satisfied, 1 ' said he, u and as to the changes you glance at, 
 I am perhaps also too proud to enter upon a defence. In my pre- 
 sent position, indeed, with the despot I am embroiled with, you 
 will excuse me if I feel obliged to decline the subject, and direct 
 all my attention to the conduct it demands of me. I lament that it 
 cannot be what you have advised • and so — — " 
 
 " Farewell, you would say," observed I, re-opening the door, 
 "and I say so too." 
 
 With this, and a bow not over cordial on either side, I left him. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A DISSERTATION ON UNEQUAL FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 And so farewell to the little good you bear me. 
 
 Shakspeare. — Henry VIII. 
 
 Such was my soliloquy, repeated many times on my way home. 
 For, though I seemed in a wilderness of thought, in which Sed- 
 bergh, Foljambe Park, Hastings, and Berlha, all had their turns, 
 this sentiment seemed uppermost, and I felt that Hastings and I 
 were separs4ed for ever. The only consolation I had was the entire 
 disavowal that I had been called by that degrading name fixed upon 
 me by Albany,- for Albany's own misconstructions I did not care a 
 rush. And now for Folhergill, who I found had sent for me while I 
 was away. 
 
 That rough, probing, keenly observing, but goodnatured man, 
 and true friend, who, full of shrewd Cumberland sense, and "wrapt 
 in his virtue and a good surtout," beheld from his watch-tower at 
 Queen's all the turmoils and struggles of the world, without par- 
 taking them himself, had now repented of the rough handling he 
 had given me, for the romance I had confessed in my love for 
 Bertha. He had parted from me, as he himself allowed, in one of 
 his pets, and thinking I had gone out in one of mine, followed me to 
 see what might come of it. " No good, I fear," added he, " for I 
 followed you to Christ Church, where, I mistake, if, from your 
 looks, you have not past through a fiery ordeal, hot, perhaps, as 
 the burning ploughshares of old." 
 
 In answer to this, I immediately related to him ail that had passed 
 with Hastings. 
 
 64 Well," said he, "as sooner or later this must have happened, 
 perhaps you are to be felicitated that it has happened so soon. You 
 are mournful, I see, and I should be sorry if you were not. The 
 lime will come when your mourning may be turned into joy ; for 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 79 
 
 what lias happened will deliver you from the fear of that character, 
 the very suspicion of which caused you so much and such just resent- 
 ment. You may not sleep better for it to night, but you will to- 
 morrow 3 you will tread lighter during the next day, and you will 
 become more like your favourite emblem there (and he pointed to 
 Maudlin Tower), seemingly rejoicing, as you said, in its own sim- 
 plicity." 
 
 Moody as I was, I was alive to this poetry of my tutor, for such 
 I thought it 5 and yet I could not help thinking, too, that something 
 like a noble mind was overthrown in Hastings. 
 
 " There was honour, I allow," said Fothergill, " in his seeking 
 to exculpate himself as he did, from the charge of having slandered 
 you to Lord Albany ; but he has changed towards you, nevertheless, 
 changed for no cause but being corrupted by the tinselled pros- 
 perity he enjoys. Whatever he did, he does not now, I was going 
 to say, love you as he does Lord Albany ; but I will not profane the 
 lerm. For it is not Albany that he loves, but his gay position in 
 the world 5 his title, his fortune, already his own, crowning him in 
 his youth ; add to this the eclat of his fashion, so dazzling to old as 
 well as young, in this place 5 and last, though not least, perhaps 
 his sister." 
 
 "His sister? " 
 
 "Yes! for is not Lady Charlotte among women, what he is 
 among men? and high and rich as are the Hastings, would not a 
 Lady Charlotte among them be a sort of godsend ?" 
 
 Seeing 1 looked surprised, he added, "I do not mean that they 
 might not pretend to her alliance, but still so propitious a connexion 
 would be valued and courted, and therefore a godsend." 
 
 The thought made me tremble, for it reminded me poignantly of 
 my own comparative littleness in my dreams of Bertha. 
 
 "All these things conjoined," proceeded my tutor, "form, as 
 you see, a train of inducements to this intimacy with the marquess, 
 and yet contain no one real ingredient of that personal merit which 
 makes a man valuable, or loveabie for his own sake 5 and if he has 
 no more than these, whole days with him, equal not in true and 
 rational happiness one hour of that placid and self-approving lime, 
 when you opened your hearts to each other at Sedbergh." 
 
 The thought affected me, and seeing me moved by the recollec- 
 tion, Fothergill changed his hand, and checked the impression, by 
 adding, " Yet you are the self-same person ( only improved in know- 
 ledge ) as you were at the school-house. Were Hastings so too, 
 why should he slight you for a man who, though known enough 
 here, is only known for the most common-place qualities that belong 
 to youth — feats of activity and noisy merriment 5 while for genius, 
 scholarship, or any one feature of menial merit, we look in vain." 
 
 I thought this no more than true, and not the less when he added, 
 
80 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 " You see in this, I do not reason from the silly prejudices of 
 many who abuse Iheir superiors, merely because they are such, and 
 deny merit to all ranks above them, from mere envy. The supposi- 
 tion is as false at it is mean, and arises only from the selfishness of 
 a vulgar mind. Nevertheless, as greatness may spoil those who pos- 
 sess it, they are to be tried as well as others before they are either 
 trusted or condemned 5 and you have tried Hastings. You have not 
 avoided him from a cowardly fear of finding him what you had no 
 right to suppose, without proof. You have, indeed, each thrown 
 the other off, but he from supercilious caprice, you from manly 
 independence. Which has the most reason to be satisfied?" 
 
 This appeared oracular as to Foljambe, but alas ! it touched not 
 the case of Bertha. She had never been spoiled. She, I was assured 
 (I slopt not to inquire how), was always the same, and so I told Fo- 
 thergill, who said with some dryness, there could not possibly be 
 a doubt of it, especially as I had such good proof for my assertions ; 
 "for you, of course," observed he, still more sarcastically, "have 
 made yourself well acquainted with all her thoughts, feelings, and 
 conversations 5 her companions, likings, and dislikings * in short, all 
 her operations, from the moment you left her to this present time. ,, 
 
 I had no answer to make to this raillery 5 indeed, I began to feel, 
 and I dare say to look, a little foolish, for which I was not spared 
 by my unmerciful preceptor. 
 
 "What," said he, "though you have never professed your ad- 
 miration, never assured her of your constancy — she knows it all, no 
 doubt, by intuition — knows that you 
 
 ' Fade away and wither in your bloom; 
 That you forget to sleep, and loath your food. 
 And youth, and health, and books are joyless to you; ' 
 
 While you, on your part, are equally certain that your merit in one 
 little visit, made an impression never to be forgotten on her virgin 
 heart. Upon my word, this Love is an admirable conjuror, and fools 
 us passing well." 
 
 I now began to think Fothergill a tyrant, and repented me that 
 I had ever made him my confidant, at least as to Bertha ; and as to 
 her brother, being put upon my mettle, I asked him with some 
 spleen, whether in his philosophy as to unequal friendships, he 
 thought that no friendship could exist except between persons born 
 in the same rank, possessing the same fortunes, and even the same 
 powers of mind ? 
 
 " It is a nice question," said he, " and cannot be answered, ex- 
 cept with modifications and explanations, which might lead us very 
 far. To possess exactly the same rank and fortune, is certainly not 
 necessary, though that there should be no great disparity of class 
 or endowments, I think is. Yet were I pressed for a categorical 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 81 
 
 reply, summed up in one general rule, subject of course to excep- 
 tions, I should answer you in the affirmative. For, as far as I could 
 ever read in tale or history, the life and soul of friendship is equa- 
 lity. No doubt an equality of class, with equal endowments and per- 
 fect independence, may reduce the inequality of fortune, and even 
 of power. A prince is a prince, though all princes are not equal 5 
 and God forbid that a gentleman less rich than another, should not 
 be the companion and friend of a gentleman. But even here, if the 
 stations are widely different \ if the parties do not class well as to 
 connexions ; if the superior looks down upon those of the inferior, 
 though he be glad to tolerate him for himself, there is an anomaly 
 leading to danger. In this I speak not of those intimacies which 
 often carry men through the world together, the basis of which is 
 mutual usefulness. These are more properly alliances than friend- 
 ships, and such an alliance you might have had with Hastings, if 
 nothing had intervened to mar it. But have a care, that even here 
 your independence might not find itself wrecked. Recollect the 
 fable of the mouse, who having done a good turn to the lion, de- 
 manded his daughter in marriage as his reward, which was granted ; 
 but just as the royal bride was stepping into bed, she accidentally 
 trod upon her tiny husband, and crushed him to death." 
 
 I was still moody under this banter, for I own I thought of Ber- 
 tha, and did not reply ; so he proceeded. 
 
 4 6 You must not be offended at this illustration, or think it designed 
 to damp other hopes or exertions which may really lead to honour. 
 It is to guard them so as to prevent their ending in disappointment, 
 that I tell you to what you may be exposed. The beauty, the delight, 
 the balm of friendship, is the perfect freedom of intercourse ; the 
 unrestrained exhibition of mind one to another. If there is depend- 
 ence as well as inequality, these are out of the question. Sultan 
 Amurath, in the midst of his rapture with a favourite wife, who he 
 thought really loved him, frightened love away for ever by merely 
 saying in jest, 4 How easily now I could cut this little head ofT which 
 I am so fond off! ' From that moment love fled from the sultana, 
 and she was left 4 a mere lifeless automaton,' instead of a warm and 
 affectionate mistress. A philosopher, too, as you know, once said, 
 he could not argue with a man who was master of twenty legions, 
 whatever he might be of the argument. So with a patron, — which, 
 depend upon it, the superior of two friends will for the most part 
 be, whatever the inferior may think of it. If the inferior, full of in- 
 dependence, sets himself up to prove his equality, ten (0 one but he 
 grows oppressive, or what is called a bore, and that is incompatible 
 with love. He will annoy by constant jealousy, which he is afraid to 
 let sleep ; and what mutual equanimity jealousy generates I leave 
 you to judge. But suppose the lower in fortune is the higher in 
 mind ! is full of wit, sense, learning, genius ! criticises, perhaps 
 1. 6 
 
DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 quizzes ! Think you this will be borne by the superior in rank., 
 power, authority, and fortune? If he feels himself put out of coun- 
 tenance by his inferior, will he seek to recover his position by keep- 
 ing up intercourse with the friend who obscures him ? If the inferior 
 assert his equality with only common familiarity, may not the fami- 
 liarity, especially if in public, be thought too bold ? Were you not 
 yourself lately an instance of it, to the embittering of your spirit? 
 How deceived as to this are not both the superior and inferior ! How 
 often do kings lament the want of real friends to unbend with ! They 
 themselves unbend ; but will they suffer the friends to do so too ? 
 Lewis XV., fatigued with pomp at Versailles, retired to Marli with 
 a chosen few to enjoy one another en egal. 6 Let there be no king,' 
 said he, 6 no subjects ; no restraint in conversation ■ let it be as if the 
 king were out of the room.' — 4 Charming,' said they all ; ' when the 
 cat's away, the mice will play.' Now the king did not like to be 
 called a cat, and the mice became so bold, and unceremonious, that 
 he soon exclaimed, 4 Ha ga, messieurs, le roi revient.' This goes 
 directly to the point ; or, if you still doubt, try Hastings again, and 
 though you may not trust a rusty parson like me, trust the politer 
 Horace, 
 
 ' Dulcis inexpertis cultura potcntis amici, 
 Expertus metui. Tu dum tua navis in alto est, 
 Hoc age, ne mutata retrorsum te ferat aura ':' " 
 
 I owned this was a forcible authority, yet would have replied, 
 and said something about Lord Oxford and Swift, which I had 
 amused myself with in Sir Harry Goff's library. 
 
 Fothergill immediately took it up, and said there was no proof 
 that theirs was more than one of those alliances of mutual useful- 
 ness which he had mentioned. 
 
 "Oxford," said he, " wanted a writer, and Swift wrote for him. 
 By his own account, he was enlisted at first as a humble friend % 
 which did not at all suit Swift's pride, and soon produced a quarrel; 
 for Harley, presuming to pay him with 50/. (the reward was perhaps 
 not large enough), Swift kicked, and pouted ; though at length ap- 
 peased with a Deanery, he could hold his head up better. What 
 even then might have been the event, we don't know, for Harley's 
 
 1 Epist. i. 18, thus translated by Francis .— 
 
 " Untried, how sweet is court attendance! 
 When tried, how dreadful the dependence ! 
 Yet, while your vessel 's under sail, 
 Be sure to catch the flying gale. 
 Lest adverse winds, with rapid force, 
 Should hear you from your destined course." 
 1 " 'Tis, let me see, three years and more, 
 October next it will be four, 
 Since Harley bid me first attend, 
 And chose me for a humble friend." 
 
 Swift's Imitation of Horucc. 
 
OR, THE COlNs a ANT MAN. 
 
 83 
 
 power was ruined, and himself forgotten, while Swift filled the 
 world with his fame. — The same may be almost said of Swift and 
 Bolingbroke. They wrote freely to one another, and amuse us with 
 their playfulness and seeming attachment. But a fat Dean is not so 
 much below an attainted Viscount. Both were warmly engaged in 
 trying to pull down a common political enemy, and this alone will 
 bind the most unequal parties together for a time, with hoops of 
 brass. The chief will not only tolerate the subaltern, but, while he 
 wants him, will make him his most familiar companion, so that 
 their friendship shall seem that of Damon and Pythias. 
 
 44 But even here observe, though his arms are open, his house is 
 not ; he may visit you, but not your wife. He will know you in the 
 streets, and at the club, but not at court. His notice at best is con- 
 fined to his single condescension to your single person, and that 
 only as long as your usefulness continues 5 but to think of allowing 
 my lady to visit your homely family, is a solescism with my lord. 
 Once a year, perhaps, and in the country, with all the lag-rag of 
 the neighbourhood, your wife and daughter may be admitted to the 
 extraordinary condescension of the Countess, who meets them after- 
 wards in town, and passes without knowing them. 
 
 "These are considerations, my young cousin, continued Fo- 
 thergill, " which, if I mistake not, will weigh with you, as Horace's 
 Epistle we quoted just now did with Lollius. That epistle was, as 
 you know, the caution of a man who well knew the world, to a 
 young friend just entering it 5 and you would do well to ponder the 
 whole $ but in particular that part of it which paints the folly of the 
 inferior in an unequal friendship, if, to prove his disregard of the 
 inequality, he presume to imitate his superior in eccentricity or 
 expense. 
 
 " How fatal has this been in examples within our own time, end- 
 ing in the ruin, and even death by suicide, of the subaltern 5 ren- 
 dered more bitter by the indifference of the higher in degree, who, 
 in the words of our Satirist, even insults and derides him. 
 
 ' Dives amicus, 
 Saepe decern vitiis instructor, odit et horret, 
 An si non odit, — regit.' • 
 
 44 Again, 
 
 ' Meae' (contendere noli) 
 Stultitiam patiuntur opes ; tibi pergula res est. 
 Arcta decet sanum comitem toga, desine raecum 
 Gertare'.'" 
 
 » My lord, more vicious and more great, 
 Views him with horror and with hate. 
 Think not, he cries, to live like me ; 
 My wealth supports my vanity ; 
 Your folly should be moderate, 
 Proportioned to your small estate. 
 
84 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 Here Fothergill stopt, and these classical allusions certainly had 
 their weight with me, both at the time and for ever after. For am- 
 ply were these remarks afterwards confirmed in the world, where I 
 have seen little men hanging on great ones, and fancying them- 
 selves part of them, but after being used, thrown neglected by. 
 Possibly I may bring them forward in the course of these memoirs $ 
 at preseflt I return to my tutor, to whom I could not help observing, 
 that the passages he had adduced from Horace, pointed not so much 
 al friendship, as a companionship in vice. 
 
 " You are right," said he, " but take a virtuous mutual regard 
 and esteem, with great inequality of condition 5 such as mine was, 
 and is still, with Lord Castleton, though we now never see one 
 another." 
 
 " Lord Castleton ! what the minister? " asked I. 
 " Yes ! and it may instruct you to know our history. We were 
 college friends of the same age, and seemingly of the same tastes, 
 like you and Hastings 5 that is, we loved reading, and talked of 
 what we read, which united us much in this place. He was honour- 
 able, generous, frank, talented, and rich. I, in comparison, very 
 poor. We both thought this nothing 5 and, being sent to travel by 
 his father, he insisted upon my accompanying him and as I was 
 to give up my career here as a tutor, he offered me three hundred 
 a year, his table, and perfect equality. Notwithstanding all this, 
 I was a mere rustic in manners \ he one of the best bred men in the 
 kingdom. Here began the rub. He was fond of me in private 5 but, 
 his fine mind being not so experienced, and his sensibility not so 
 well disciplined, as it is now, though I will not say he was ashamed, 
 he was awkward with me in public. I took no pains to shew, by 
 obsequious deference, my sense of the inequality of our conditions, 
 nor even to get rid of my rust. I gave myself up to books, and the 
 study of mankind, where I best found it (because in an undress), 
 in shops, markets, the bourse, and courts of justice; while he pass- 
 ed his time in the palaces of princes, ministers, and ladies. Here, 
 when I was admitted with him, as I sometimes was, though he 
 • never was what may be called disconcerted, he was not overpleased. 
 1 was not happy at this, and felt like Gray with Walpole, and we 
 were near separating, as they did, yet without losing respect for 
 one another. Indeed, like Walpole, he acknowleged he was in 
 fault, and had the candour not to let me go.' — On our return home, 
 however, things altered still more. Though he kept me in his 
 house, to assist, as he said, his reading — and complimented me on 
 what he called my shrewdness, nay sometimes consulted me in po- 
 litics, to which he gave himself up with ardour — he soon found 
 that, from too great indifference towards the people he wished me 
 to cultivate, or perhaps a want of sufficient ambition, he could not 
 produce me in public as he wished. The independence of my 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 85 
 
 manners, owing to the equal friendship which reigned in our pri- 
 vate apartments (in which I must do him the justice to say he never 
 altered ), was not always, or exactly, what he liked when ministers 
 and nobles met at his table. He employed me much in literary, or 
 rather political researches, and drawing papers founded upon them, 
 but complained that my productions were more satirical, or at best 
 philosophical, than serviceable. Hence, perhaps, he turned me 
 into a mere amanuensis, which I did not like. But three hundred 
 a year, a great house, and a great man, who was also an accom- 
 plished and real friend, I did not like to abandon. In time, how- 
 ever, we both grew less warm 5 he from being occupied with others 
 more necessary to him ; I, from my sense of that very circumstance. 
 Though I continued, therefore, to dine at his table, and our mutual 
 esteem was not interrupted, I felt too much a burthen to him, not 
 to wish to relieve him from it, as well as myself-, — and I told him 
 so. He seemed at first uncomfortable, if not distressed ; but allowed 
 that he feared our habits, views, and occupations were too little 
 alike to make my abode with him pleasant to myself. He owned 
 he had too much of the ambition of the world on his part, for what 
 he called my philosophy ; and, seeing that I really longed to be 
 where he allowed I could be more useful, as well as more happy, 
 he did not long oppose our separation. 
 
 " 4 But though I shall lose you,' he was pleased to observe, 4 as 
 a coadjutor, we must always remain the friends we are, and I shall 
 continue to rely upon your assistance where I think your stores, or 
 future position, may enable you to give it, as I know you will do.' 
 
 " Our parting really affected me, and I ought to add, to his ho- 
 nour, that having, as he said, seduced me from my college, and 
 made me lose much lime in my favourite career, he insisted upon 
 my continuing to receive the three hundred a year, till a living of 
 more than that value in his gift should fall in. I declined the sti- 
 pend, but accepted the promise of the living, which I now enjoy. 
 He still often writes to me, acquaints me, sometimes in confidence, 
 with his views of things going on, and does me the honour to con- 
 sult me on literary subjects, of which he is still keenly fond. Thus, 
 we are better friends asunder than we were together, being so dis- 
 similar • he, lost in the vortex of the world where he shines 5 /, 
 buried in my living, or college, where I am anything but unhappy." 
 
 This recital made a deep impression upon me, and I neither 
 wondered at my tutor's anxiety to set before me the dangers, or at 
 least the disadvantages, of unequal friendships, nor how he came 
 by his experience. 
 
 " However," said he, " you observe, I speak of real friendship, 
 intrinsic, pure, and indulged for its own sake alone, as so difficult 
 to preserve between parties that are unequal. What I have called 
 alliances for mutual benefit arc far more easy, and therefore more 
 
80 DE CLIFFORD J 
 
 common. They last as long as their usefulness lasts. If regard as 
 well as respect accompany them, well 5 if not, a separation when 
 required, as is often the case, is attended with less regret. Such an 
 alliance you might make with another, but not now with Hastings, 
 because you have loved him. For I need not refer you to Ovid for 
 the apophthegm, 
 
 • Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur, 
 Majestas et amor.'" 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DANGERS OF A MESALLIANCE BETWEEN A HIGH GENTLEMAN AND A LOW LADY, 
 BETWEEN A HIGH LADY AND A LOW GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Oh ! Hamlet, speak no more, 
 Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 "But if this take effect in male friendships," said Fothergill, 
 continuing his discourse, "what must it be between the sexes? 
 Here a still more comfortless scene opens, especially on the part of 
 the woman who matches below herself. Even where the man does 
 so, though, intrenched in his superiority, he can raise a wife to 
 his own level, yet even there a long train of (to say the best of 
 them ) unpleasant concomitants attend and mortify him at every 
 turn. He has to reconcile his family and friends to the false step 
 they think he has made. They look down, or he fears they look 
 down, upon his choice 5 they are angry that their own importance, 
 perhaps fortunes, have been hurt by the match. His mother and 
 sisters, if not very generous, criticise, and sneer 5 and even his 
 younger brothers think to enlarge their consequence by giving 
 themselves airs. 
 
 "If the husband is of very high rank, and there are children, 
 they have but one parent \ at any rate, if they tolerate their mother, 
 it is quite enough, without taxing their attentions for a number of 
 poor or unfashionable relations, whom they at least had no part in 
 bestowing upon themselves. 
 
 "This is all sad, and there must be great beauty, accomplish- 
 ments, and merit, in the poor wife, to be thus even condescend- 
 ingly admitted into another and higher family, at the price of mor- 
 tifying herself, and forgetting her own, 
 
 "There is also another of this sort of cares, not so melancholy 
 to the wife, but perhaps more destructive of the peace of the hus- 
 band. It is when the lowborn lady is the person to give herself airs, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 87 
 
 and flies in Ihe face of her high-born husband, and all his family. 
 This was felt by no less a man than Cato, the censor, who, in his 
 old age, married a young girl of mean extraction, thinking to do 
 what he pleased with her, I suppose out of expected gratitude. But 
 she proved a termagant 5 and St. Jerome, wanting to show that 
 those who marry poor wives in order to be quiet at home are not 
 always sure of their mark, quotes this case of Cato in proof of his 
 opinion." 
 
 " That I can believe," said 1 5 " but is not your other supposi- 
 tion, that the poor wife is made so unhappy by her high alliance, 
 often contradicted by facts ? " 
 
 And I mentioned several marriages of peers with persons of infe- 
 rior condition, of which the periodicals of the day were full. 
 
 "That there are instances of such merit," replied he, " as to 
 overcome all this, is not to be denied; and persons of very middling 
 rank have sometimes seemed, by their talents for representation, 
 to have been born countesses. But these are as rare as felicitous 
 exceptions, and, for the most part, the high husband, after the first 
 attraction has lost its charm, finds himself plunged for the rest of 
 his life in endless mortifications; for he has to support and coun- 
 tenance, for his own credit's sake, a troop of near and dear con- 
 nections whom he wishes he had never seen, if he does not wish 
 them at the devil ; and who he at least feels will do him the reverse 
 of honour.* 
 
 "Thus much where the wife is really a woman of elegance of 
 mind and of manners. But there are marriages where, from the 
 weakness or blindness of the husband, influenced by a temporary 
 passion, the woman may in these respects be grossly deficient. I 
 have seen such wives, vulgar, coarse, and selfish in mind, and 
 slatterns in person ; — such wonders will caprice or a vitiated taste 
 effect in some of us lords of the creation. Where this is the case, 
 if the man has a spark of delicacy or sensibility left, he is exiled for 
 life from society, where he can never show himself without shame, 
 and ' bitter must be his portion to drink 5 ' for it would be happier 
 for him to be of the same nature as his wife, and both to lie down 
 in the same stye." 
 
 "This is a picture to make one shudder," said I, " and per- 
 haps too true." 
 
 "I assure you, it is not overcharged," said Fothergill, "even 
 where the lady is parvenue. Now to take its converse, and let the 
 gentleman be the one promoted 
 
 "But I spare you, my young cousin; for your high-hoping 
 temper, and unfledged experience, will not easily bear the picture 
 I could paint." 
 
 And here the Cumberland sage again stopt. 
 
 I assured him I could bear all, and desired nothing so much as to 
 
88 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 see the world through his clear-sighted vision. And yet I trembled ; 
 for the remembrance of Bertha unnerved me. 
 
 He saw it, and said he would be as light with me as he could. 
 u My first appeal," observed he, " shall be to your honour. And 
 certainly if ever honour would influence a man, it would be to 
 prevent him from seeking tomakeaperson he loves degrade herself." 
 
 " Degrade ! " exclaimed I. 
 
 4 'Yes*, for even could you succeed, would you not reduce Miss 
 Hastings from her own class to yours •, and without meaning at all 
 to go beyond the etymology of the word, or make it stand, as it 
 often does, for disgrace, would not that degrade her? Could you 
 expect her to descend from the society of Foljambe Park, or Gros- 
 venor Square, to follow you to your father's homestead, or through 
 the world in the shape perhaps of that illustrious being called a 
 tutor, or at very best a country parson? Beit, however, that your 
 fondest dream was realized ; that instead of forgetting you, as she 
 probably has done, she was absolutely ready to go with you to the 
 altar, and there meet the curses of her father, and all those rela- 
 tions whose countenance would make marriage sweet, instead of the 
 blessings she would have a right to expect : — where would be the 
 happy home to which you could introduce her? There could be 
 no such home, for every thing in it would, from contrast, remind 
 her of the height from which she had fallen, and the love of a family 
 who loved her no longer ! " 
 
 "This is severely strong," said I, and I gave a deep sigh. 
 
 u Not stronger, than true," he replied. "But, even supposing 
 that a miracle should intervene in your favour, and that you obtained 
 her by consent, reluctant, but still consent : or suppose that, having 
 married without it, you are what they might call forgiven. With 
 even this forgiveness, could you be more than endured? — think you 
 that you would ever be received as an equal, much less as a son or 
 brother? Your fortune and your station being where they are, must 
 not this daughter of wealth and nobility fall to their level, and par- 
 take of their character? Could she ever be restored to that blylhe 
 and buoyant cheerfulness, of which you would have deprived her, 
 and which you have described as the delight of her father, and the 
 charm of her friends? Where would the freedom of her spirit fly? 
 To her husband, you will say, and perhaps a loved progeny, but 
 obtained at the expense of what? poverty, and the loss of the smile 
 of the world!" 
 
 I was again sensibly moved, but he went on. 
 
 " What hour of the day, what movement could either of you 
 make, what part of your own family could she cultivate, that would 
 not painfully remind her of the height from which she had fallen, 
 —you, of the alteration in her lot, perhaps in her disposition ; and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 80 
 
 all caused by your own misplaced, selfish, and too successful par- 
 tiality." 
 
 I now absolutely groaned at this forcible picture, and begged him 
 to desist. 
 
 " Not yet," said he, " for say what you please of the poetry of 
 life, and particularly of love 5 deck it out in pastorals, and repeat 
 every day the pretty song which you say once so moved you, of 
 Lucy singing at her wheel in russet gown and apron blue 5 Miss 
 Hastings was never made to turn a wheel, or wear a russet gown; 
 or if she could wear it for your sake, she could not submit to it 
 without flying from the world, and living in a desert. There in- 
 deed, out of reach of former habits, acquaintance, and ideas, it 
 might be possible, and only possible, that in total oblivion of the 
 past, life might not be made a perpetual burthen by memory $ yet 
 even there, memory would often force her way, and embitter pre- 
 sent enjoyment by former recollections. In short, the world is an 
 imperious world, and never forgives an attempt at rebellion." 
 
 " Alas! " said I, " I fear that is too true." 
 
 " Without therefore, steeping the senses in forgetfulness," pro- 
 ceeded he, u which could only be achieved by being cut off from 
 it, it would be vain for a woman who has sunk from her station, 
 to think herself independent of it. Every transitory or chance ac- 
 count of former amusements, former grandeur, and, above all, 
 former friends, would make her heart sink at the thought of what 
 she had been contrasted with what she was." 
 
 " Yet she might love her husband," said I, hesitatingly. 
 
 " She might, but would that reconcile her to the loss of family 
 love? a father's fondness, for example." 
 
 "I fear not," said I, and I trembled when I thought of the 
 mutual fondness of Mr. Hastings and his daughter. 
 
 Fothergill saw how I was affected, and went on. " These things/' 
 said he, " will have their weight spile of romance. A marquess 
 who becomes a bergere for love, must either have little dignity of 
 character, or repent and be miserable in banishment." 
 
 As a last struggle in the argument, I now asked Fothergill, if he 
 could mention instances of this? 
 
 " A pregnant one," he replied, " in the Countess of Warwick, 
 with no less a man than Addison \ though that could scarcely be 
 called a mesalliance, for, in the end, he was Secretary of State. 
 That union was not happy, because, as was said, the Countess 
 could never forget (perhaps never forgive), that her second hus- 
 band had been her son's tutor. And yet, no doubt, when the great 
 lady first made this stoop, she was actuated, as she thought, by a 
 most generous devotion, as well as admiration, for a person cer- 
 iainly the ornament of his age. Still it availed little for poor Ad- 
 dison 5 and I cannot do better, as an illustration of the subject, 
 
90 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 than refer you to what Johnson says of it, in his life of that illus- 
 trious man." 
 
 At this, taking down his Lives of the Poets, he read as follows :— • 
 
 "This year (1716), he married the Countess Dowager of War- 
 wick, whom he had solicited by a long and anxious courtship, 
 perhaps with behaviour not very much unlike that of Sir Roger, 
 to his disdainful widow ; and who, I am afraid, diverted herself 
 often by playing with his passion. He is said to have first known 
 her by becoming tutor to her son. In what part of his life he ob- 
 tained the recommendation, or how long, and in what manner, he 
 lived in the family, I know not. His advances, at first, were cer- 
 tainly timorous, but grew bolder as his reputation and influence 
 increased; till at last the lady was persuaded to marry him, on 
 terms much like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused, to 
 whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, 4 daughter, I give thee 
 this man for thy slave.' The marriage made no addition to his hap- 
 piness; it neither found them, nor made them equal. She always 
 remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat 
 with very little ceremony the tutor of her son '." 
 
 "This is surely enough for the argument," concluded Fother- 
 gill, " though there are other cases which I have not been without 
 observing, and which, in fact, first prompted this opinion of mine." 
 
 I entreated to know them. 
 
 " Why frequently," he replied, " some of our most settled ma- 
 xims of life arise from accidental circumstances. When I was tte 
 companion of Lord Castle ton, a picture of mesalliance forcibly 
 struck me, in the person of his own sister, Lady Harriet Longueville, 
 who exchanged that name for Baggs." 
 
 " Baggs ! " exclaimed I, " what a name! " and I thought with 
 complacency of the De Cliffords. 
 
 "Plebeian, certainly, " said Fothergill, " nor was Mr. Baggs in 
 his condition much better than his name, though he was the son 
 of honest parents respectable in their line of life, his father, in fact, 
 having a place in the Lord Mayor's court. As for himself, the best 
 that can be said of him was that he was not disreputable from any 
 vice, and had a certain coarse vigour of character; the worst, that 
 being tolerably educated, he had conceived too high an idea of his 
 own abilities, which he supposed would ensure him fortune when- 
 ever he pleased. In the meantime, his reading gave him notions 
 far beyond himself; for he practised the sentimental and romantic, 
 with much contempt for those whom he called common-place per- t 
 sons." 
 
 » She was a Middleton, daughter of Sir Thomas. Who that reflects upon the universal 
 fame of Addison, and feels him in his delightful literature one of the benefactors of 
 mankind, and at the same time is puzzled to find out the family name of the wife who 
 thus looked down upon him, but must laugh such nonsense to scorn. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 91 
 
 I thought my good tutor looked too significantly at me while 
 thus describing the hero Mr. Baggs; but I contented myself with 
 saying, 44 And was it such a person as this who obtained an earl's 
 sister? Ah ! she could not have been like Bertha ! Perhaps she was 
 plain and unattractive ; perhaps half-witted or uneducated ; or per- 
 haps a despairing old maid." 
 
 4 4 Far from them all," said Fothergill. 44 She was rather hand- 
 some ; had had the usual education of her rank ; was accomplished 
 and popular, and though not in her teens, was by no means anti- 
 quated. Of her wit, I will not say much, for whatever it was, she 
 showed it not here •, it was all lost and overlaid by a love of romance, 
 by which she too was bit, and which, in fact, was what occasioned 
 the step which ruined her," * 
 
 44 She is, then, ruined? " said I. 
 
 44 1 think so. But listen. While her brother, over whose house 
 she had presided, was abroad, she resided with an aunt, an old 
 and infirm lady, who, during the summer, shut herself up with her 
 niece in a monotonous park in Gloucestershire ; and in this park, 
 where she had full liberty to range, Lady Harriet one eventful 
 morning met this young swain reading aloud to himself. It was 
 poetry, and he read well. He seemed confused at seeing her — shut 
 the book in a hurry — feared he was a trespasser — was taken by the 
 beauty of the park— a stranger that lodged in the village — et cetera, 
 et cetera. The lady was pleased — thought it an adventure-, said 
 that reading out aloud in a park to one's self must be very delight- 
 ful 5 in fine, gave him leave to repeat his walk whenever he pleased, 
 and went home and told her aunt that she had met a love of a man, 
 who, she was sure, had a most beautiful mind. The next day they 
 met again, and again afler that. They found they had both of 
 them beautiful minds, akin of course to one another, and how 
 much was that above the dross of the world ! Besides, though Lady 
 Harriet was not richly endowed, she was her own mistress, and 
 told him so." 
 
 44 Upon this hint he spake," and was accepted before either of 
 them had inquired after their means of subsistence — a thing Mr. 
 Baggs said he spurned ; — which was lucky, for the honest clerk, 
 his father, could not give him a pound. The old aunt could oppose 
 nothing to this; but it was a sad blow to Lord Castleton, when 
 he returned to England. His pride was hurt, and his anxiety for 
 his sister alarmed. He urged all that could be so well urged against 
 the measure — poverty, disparity of condition, loss of caste, ul- 
 timate misery. But in vain ; her eyes were still blinded, her ho- 
 nour pledged, and the Lady Harriet Longueville became Lady 
 Harriet Baggs." 
 
 44 Yet the result is to come," said I. 
 
 u It is not happy, as you may suppose. Lord Castleton, at first 
 
92 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 resentful, paid his sister her 8,000/., upon the interest of which, 
 with her husband, she subsisted as well as she could for some 
 months, exchanging her brother's fine mansion, of which she no 
 longer could do the honours, for a lodging, neither very large nor 
 very clean, in which, however, she expected to be visited by her 
 friends. They came once, saw her husband, pitied her, look leave, 
 and never came again. Lord Castleton, relenting, received her 
 sometimes by herself, and sometimes with her husband, whose 
 high pretensions and forwardness by no means conciliated him, 
 but for whom, to keep them from starving, he obtained a small 
 place, upon which they now barely exist. 
 
 " Her society is almost already reduced to the aunts, sisters, and 
 cousins, of Mr. Baggs, remarkable only for familiar vulgarity, and 
 who, transported to call an earl's daughter their relation, never 
 leave her to the solitude she now courts, as her only relief; and 
 the certainty of finding her surrounded with these coarse people 
 keeps off the very few friends who would still wish to notice her. 
 
 " Thus exiled from all she most loved — lost to her former stale, 
 and despoiled of all that can cheer her (for her husband has long 
 ceased to do so) — she drags on a melancholy existence, in which 
 her only subject for meditalion is unceasing self-blame. When last 
 I saw her, it was in a small, dirty, and mean house, near her 
 brother's, who often feeds her from his larder. She has a child much 
 neglected, from perpetual sorrow, her husband can neither give 
 her consequence nor receive it from her; and her spirit is so 
 broken, that she seems to have lost the desire as well as power to 
 retrieve her condition. My tale is done." 
 
 u And a melancholy one," observed I; " enough to terrify a 
 bolder man than 1 5 and yet I cannot help thinking that I am not 
 Mr. Baggs." 
 
 I said this firmly, as if it was in answer to his case. 
 
 " And pray, as to essentials, in what are you different?" asked 
 my tutor, looking very tutor-like indeed. 
 
 "lama De Clifford," answered I, " and not a Baggs." 
 
 " Aye, there it is," returned he, with almost anger. " I wish the 
 name were at the bottom of the sea, for it is perpetually haunting 
 you as if the very ghost of your ancestor Sir William. 
 
 * The times have been 
 That when the brains were out the man would die, 
 And there an end ; but now they rise 
 With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, 
 And push us from our stools.' 
 
 " So it is with you. You have not a word to say for yourself; 
 you are beaten as flat in the argument as the Lords Clifford were 
 killed regularly in battle some hundred years ago ; yet you make 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 93 
 
 them rise again, to push me from my stool. As if the name would 
 give you an estate, or make your father other than a farmer." 
 
 u My father is a grand juryman, in the county of York," said I, 
 " as well as Mr. Hastings, and not a lord mayor's official," 
 
 u And why not add that he is the son-in-law of a Saxon duke, 
 of a sovereign house, and that Mr. Hastings sells his own corn in 
 Wealherby market. Upon my word, my Lord De Clifford, you are 
 a very great fool." 
 
 With these words he left me. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FOLJAMBE IS EXPELLED . — HIS BEHAVIOUR UPON IT.-— A PRACTICAL DISSERTATION 
 
 UPON PRIDE. 
 
 What is the cause, Laertes 
 That thy rebellion looks so giant-like? 
 
 Shakspe are .—Hamlet. 
 
 Petulant as I dare say I have appeared in the course of these 
 memoirs, I was not in the least affronted with my kinsman-tutor 
 for the appellation he gave me at the end of the last chapter. On the 
 contrary, he had not been gone ten minutes, before the musing I 
 fell into, the consequence of his portentous story, made me very 
 much inclined to think he was right. 
 
 This musing lasted during the greater part of the day 5 and 1 fell 
 into as many resolutions as humours,' — according as love for Ber- 
 tha, indignation at her brother, prudence, or a spirit of indepen- 
 dence, became uppermost. At one lime I arrayed myself in sto- 
 icism, and would be a Cato; at another, 1 was all dignity and 
 Clifford-pride towards the whole family of Foljambe Park. But 
 this soon gave way before the sweet beauty and frankness of Bertha, 
 who had never shewn pride to any one. In the end this prevailed; 
 I could not part with my feelings, and would not if I could. 
 
 In the midst of this, a trifling question obtruded itself— Had Ber- 
 tha any, and what feelings towards me? Strange to say, I had 
 never very seriously asked this before, so richly did I deserve the 
 epilhet which my tutor had bestowed upon me, and so true his re- 
 mark, that " this love fools us passing well." 
 
 Thinking I would settle the point, I took a walk by the side of 
 the Cherwell. Here, except that she had commended my dancing, 
 said she should miss us all when we went away, and hoped she 
 should see me again with Charles, I had not a breath to flatter my- 
 self with that I could be remembered, much less favoured. With 
 
94 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 that Charles, too, I had never been asked to return, and was now 
 about to break for ever. 
 
 Nor did her high German as well as English descent fail to be 
 thought of. Was ever fool, therefore, more deluded by his heart, 
 when I yet felt myself clinging to this delicious passion, in the very 
 moment that I was uttering to myself the most fervid resolves to 
 banish it for ever ? 
 
 But hope has well been called " the most powerful of all temp- 
 ters," and, like the great tempter of old, it can sometimes assume 
 the form of an angel of light, the belter to deceive its votaries ; and 
 if a sailor who had sunk full twenty fathoms deep never lost his 
 hope till he lost his senses, what wonder if I would not forogo this 
 sweet friend of man in a mild and blissful evening, at the blissful age 
 of nineteen, and on the bank of a blissful river. 
 
 Tis true, my tongue breathing philosophy and resolution, all the 
 time my heart was beating rebellion, reminded me of what I had 
 heard of St. Austin, who, while preferring prayers to be strength- 
 ened against carnal pleasures, secretly hoped he should not be 
 heard. But such is the wayward nature of man— not. I fear, con- 
 fined to his youth. 
 
 In the midst of this struggle, I was critically met by Fothergill, 
 from whom I expected another scold, but it was lost in the news he 
 had to tell. He had evidently somelhing important to communicate. 
 
 " Lad," said he, " I called you a hard name when I last left you 
 —but let that pass 5 lor though I thought you what I wont repeat, 
 you are at least not so mad and headstrong as your friend there," — 
 and he pointed to Christ Church. 
 
 "What has happened?" asked I. 
 
 44 Only expelled, for not submitting to be rusticated; that's all." 
 
 I felt my cheeks immediately suffused, and my heart to beat high ; 
 for I found I slill loved Foljambe, though still resolving to separate. 
 Fothergill went on. 
 
 "This froward spark, who thinks himself above all the world 
 (you may guess what he thinks of you), did not chuse to submit to 
 the punishment awarded to him for disobedience of orders, so broke 
 prison, 
 
 ' And to his general sent a brave defiance.' " 
 
 "Do you mean," said I, " that he has executed his threat, and 
 has quitted his college for ever ? " 
 
 " I cannot exactly say," answered Fothergill, " that he has quilted 
 his college, because his college has quitted him. For, before he 
 could give his intended notice, though after he broke loose, he 
 found himself expelled, propter contumaciam, In fact, having, as 
 I said, left his prison without leave, his chief called for Ihe book of 
 battels, and struck him out of it with his own hand." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 95 
 
 " Lamentable ! " cried I, What will his family say ? " 
 " That he has been rightly served," observed Folhergill. 
 " And how does he bear it?" 
 
 " Like all disgraced men of noble spirit 5 of course, triumphs. He 
 has already made a great party, who canvass the measure with no 
 good-will to the high-minded chief who has thus asserted himself, 
 and whom they blame for tyrannizing for tyranny's sake, as Mr. 
 Hastings was intending to leave college altogether. He so repre- 
 sented it to the dean, in a letter, who returned it with this note on 
 the passage in the margin : 4 In your situation, you could not have 
 been allowed to quit, till you had submitted to the punishment 
 awarded and deserved.' " 
 
 "And what is thought of it?" 
 
 m The town is split, of course. By one party, the deed is deemed 
 a detestable act of power } by the other, a firm measure of justice. 
 May I ask your opinion ? " 
 
 " I am too grieved to give a free one," said 1 5 " for I still love 
 my schoolfellow." 
 
 "Love him, if you please," said Fothergill; "but let not that 
 blind you to his egotism, his insolence, or his pride. It is not, nor 
 it cannot come to good. — Hunc tu Romane caveto." 
 
 Here, being joined by two or three fellows of Queen's, Mr. Fo- 
 lhergill left me to pursue my meditations on the banks of the Cher- 
 well 5 and meditate I did, bitterly and deeply. For, with all my 
 wrongs, I was anxious for Foljambe's fate ; though that, consider- 
 ing his position in the world, an only son, and great heir of a great 
 family, and so commanding every where but at Oxford, left me in 
 a little time without much anxiety on his account. 
 
 But when I thought of the proof this gave, in one so young, of a 
 proud, overbearing, aristocratic, and haughty spirit, the total in- 
 compatibility of a friendship between him and me, except in the 
 character of patron and follower, which our former equality for- 
 bade, struck me in unanswerable force. I found my sagacious tutor 
 more and more right. 
 
 I gave the whole night to these reflections. It was the first great 
 disappointment I had endured; but my spiritof independence coming 
 to my aid, I resolved to bear it like a man ; and as Hastings left the 
 university the very next day, I had more leisure and opportunity to 
 recover. Here his absence, indeed, was of service, not merely by 
 taking from my vision the person who so constantly and anxiously 
 filled it, but in bringing to my notice, and thence to my regard, 
 others who, though not of such a bold flight of character, or of such 
 high birth and connection, equalled, if not exceeded him, in most of 
 those qualities which really sweeten life. Some were scholars 5 some 
 men of genius — many of feeling 5 none forgot themselves 5 all bore 
 their faculties meekly. 
 
96 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 This did not fail to have its effect, and I was at length brought to 
 believe that there might be other gentlemen, as well as other gifted 
 persons, than were confined to Christ Church, and that Oxford 
 might contain respectable, lively, and amiable persons, though 
 Hastings was not there. 
 
 This was encouraged by my tutor, who bantered me for supposing 
 there could be only one man in the whole university worthy of being 
 my friend. 
 
 In the words of old Cassius, protesting against the exclusive right 
 of Caesar to fill the eye of Rome, he often twitted me with — 
 
 " When went there by an age since the great flood, 
 But it was famed with more than one man." 
 
 And when I thought, as I sometimes did, of Hastings 1 taunt about 
 the "animals I herded with at Queen's," he would ask, if the two 
 Addisons, father and son, both of them Queen's men, were animals 
 to be ashamed of. 
 
 I loved Addison too well for this to fail of its effect, and the ab- 
 sence of Hastings, together with the merit of others whom I was now 
 not unwilling to cultivate, taught me a useful lesson, that though 
 the hare and many friends is not a desirable, perhaps is a ridiculous 
 character, yet to give one's self up to one engrossing interest, to the 
 exclusion of all others, is reducing us to a stale of dependence al- 
 most as onerous as that of a real hanger-on. I daily, therefore, felt 
 my heart-burning about Hastings subside, and opened my mind to 
 the acquisition of other intimacies. 
 
 Among these, one with Mr. Granville, of All Souls, a very en- 
 thusiastic person, to whom I was introduced in form by Fothergill, 
 as a brother enthusiast, claimed the first, and indeed a very high 
 place. For though he was some years my senior, and perhaps the 
 most accomplished man in the university, he was so good as at first 
 to tolerate and protect, and afterwards to feel a kindness for me, for 
 which I was always grateful. 
 
 Granville was a beautiful classic, which study fed a most romantic 
 disposition, carried to its height by a taste for poetry and music — in 
 both which he was no ordinary artist; — for some of his poems and 
 melodies, breathing delicate love, reminding me then of Tibullus, 
 and afterwards of Petrarch, and set by himself to "Lydian mea- 
 sures," had been published and admired in our musical university. 
 
 My own feeling for both these charming arts was, perhaps, what 
 first recommended me to the favour of Granville ; but my respect 
 for him was infinitely enhanced by his relationship to the family 
 which had engrossed my all of interest : for his mother being a sister 
 of Mr. Hastings, he was by consequence cousin to Bertha; and his 
 interest with me on that account may be divined. 
 
 There were many other characters with whom I became ac- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 quainted, and met afterwards in the world, and whom 1 may here- 
 after introduce in the course of these memoirs 5 but Granville, 
 having had a more intimate and earlier influence on my career, 
 which continued to the very end of it, I have stopped to describe 
 him here. I now return to my narrative. • 
 
 Left to myself, and relieved from the nightmare which my 
 anxieties about Foljambe had hitherto imposed upon me, I began 
 to breathe more freely, and listened more complacently to my good 
 kinsman's lectures about Bertha. I found, however, that in regard 
 to both her and her brother, I was embarrassed with a difficulty in 
 my philosophy, arising, it should seem, out of a liberalism, or 
 perhaps causing that liberalism (I don't know which), of which, 
 notwithstanding my hatred of mob rule and contempt for mob 
 popularity, nay, spite of my respect for the blood of the Cliffords 
 and Bardolfes, I had no inconsiderable share. The following pro- 
 position engaged me. 
 
 Is that a sound state of society, or can there be perfect freedom, 
 when either by law there is a privileged class of men, or from custom 
 or insuperable prejudice, a tolerated one, which shall be allowed 
 to usurp a dominion (though only in their own minds) over any 
 other classes? If we are all fellow-citizens, or fellow-subjects, and 
 have equal rights under the law, can it be endured that any one 
 person, or set of persons, shall be allowed even to think themselves 
 higher than others, so as to act the exclusive towards them, and 
 draw a magic circle round themselves, into which no others shall 
 have power to enter? 
 
 The maxim of 
 
 " Nul n'aura de l'esprit, 
 " Hors nous et nos amis," 
 
 forms an aristocracy in literature. It is the same, or worse, in the 
 aristocracy of fashion, because the proscribed in the last have less 
 power to defend themselves. 
 
 How is this to be resisted? Not surely by flight! Not by saying 
 the grapes are sour, and therefore I won't taste them. No \ let me 
 prove and feel my right to taste them, and then throw them away 
 if I please. This, and this alone, I thought was the perfection of 
 freedom \ and a desideratum, fully as necessary to be accomplished 
 in our moral, as the most desirable reform in our political con- 
 stitution. 
 
 This was my problem, ?nd I own the solution of the whole of 
 Euclid would have been nothing to it. It was in vain that I drew up 
 myself, or imagined for my tutor, all the fine arguments that philo- 
 sophy or magnanimity could supply, by which to render one of the 
 rejected perfectly at ease as to the usurpation of the rejectors. I 
 criticised all the fine people I had seen in the university, I found 
 F. 7 
 
DE CLIFFORD*, 
 
 one uglier, another more awkward, another meaner, a fourth a 
 greater blockhead, and some even as ill-dressed, as those they 
 affected to keep at a distance. They had all the little passions and 
 foolish rivalries, the strifes, heart-burnings, envy, hatred, and 
 malice that we had ; nor were their manners in anywise more 
 polished. But they kept all these among themselves 5 they would not 
 condescend to be even rude to those below them in caste ; on the 
 contrary, if forced by chance into any communication, their 
 demeanour was marked by the most freezing distance. In fact, it 
 was a total proscription of intercourse which they affected, and this 
 was what,both puzzled and annoyed me. 
 
 What made the puzzle greater, there were several among these 
 chosen few who had no more right than myself, from birth, 
 parentage, or education, and I had almost said fortune, to the 
 admission which they had received among these sacred ranks. They 
 must themselves have 
 
 It is inconceivable how all this engaged my inquiries, and, I 
 grieve to add, affected my tranquillity. 
 
 I heard from some of my higher acquaintance, and read in the 
 papers, of a sort of king of fashion and exclusiveness in London, 
 whose nod was law as to company, and for whose countenance as 
 an arbiter elegantiarum more struggles were made than there 
 
 Bon Ton, as our convocation did in learning. Any one on whom 
 he smiled could be admitted any where 5 he on whom he frowned 
 could show himself no where. Well, he was as rich and sumptuous 
 as fastidious-, but what was his right to be fastidious? What was 
 he above the commonest man? barring rank and fortune, and that 
 was no merit of his own. 
 
 Knowing nothing of him, and not likely to do so, it is remarkable 
 
 how I plagued myself about this Lord A , as a riddle of human 
 
 nature. For I had never heard of a single superior quality in any 
 one thing which belonged to his character. He had no wit, nor 
 indeed more than the commonest knowledge of any thing; neither 
 conversation, nor agreeableness. But he made a profit of his dullness, 
 by making it assume the character of reserve, which humbugged 
 "'the general," who thought themselves in the third heaven if 
 invited to his bails ; and even there his major-domo would have 
 acted his part quite as well as himself. 
 
 I resolved to bring this whole subject, Lord A and all, before 
 
 my sagacious Mentor. 
 
 " I believe," said Mr. Fothergill, after I had opened myself to 
 him, "that no ingenuous youth of any mind, or sense of inde- 
 pendence, but has been at one time or other affected in the same 
 
 ' Wondered how the devil they got there." 
 
 used to prevail for the empire of Gen 
 
 He dealt out degrees in 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 90 
 
 way as yourself; and the impression is more or less forcible, and 
 lasts a longer or shorter time, according to the temperament, 
 sanguine or phlegmatic, of the patient." 
 "Patient!" cried I. 
 
 " Yes ! for is not this a mental disease? Does it not for the most 
 part proceed from both pride and weakness in the complainant? and 
 are not both these diseases?" 
 
 "If you make that out, yes." 
 
 "Why, what but pride or weakness in yourself could make you 
 feel them an annoyance in another? For I suppose, I need not ask 
 you whether the usurpation you complain of is not pride and 
 weakness ?" 
 
 "Certainly ; and it is, as such, absolutely contemptible." 
 
 " Then, I think, we need go no further ; for why should you be 
 annoyed with what you think absolutely contemptible?" 
 
 This was a hit-, but I did not want the subject to be so let off; 
 I wanted a little more of the details of the demonstration which I 
 was sure this keen observer knew well how to furnish ; and I told 
 him I was not satisfied. 
 
 "Why," said he, "here is a demonstration, or rather illustra- 
 tion, ready to our hands 5 " and he pointed to a peacock (we were 
 in Maudlin Walk) which was strutting in the meadows close by ; 
 his tail spread, all over eyes and spangles, sparkling in the sun, 
 the most complete, putfed-up coxcomb that could be seen. 
 
 " Now, what would you say to yourself," continued Fothergill, 
 "if you could be angry at that fool for giving himself such airs. 
 See how he struts by you, absolutely bursting with disdain ; yet you 
 are unmoved, except it be to laugh. 
 
 " The comparison is not just," said I, " for the peacock is not 
 a man." 
 
 " No 5 but a man may be a peacock." 
 
 Another hit, for so I felt it, and was silent. 
 
 "Now, when you are most annoyed," proceeded he, u by the 
 usurpation you complain of, you have only to fancy a truth — that 
 the gentleman and lady usurpers are peacocks, and you may laugh 
 at them as you do at this self-sufficient fowl. 1 ' 
 
 "Very good," I returned; "but pray tell me how it is, that 
 common dunghill fowls sometimes become peacocks too, and though 
 they have little or no tails, are allowed to spread themselves to the 
 sun, and strut in company with those beautiful birds, to the great 
 annoyance of their modest fellow dunghills, whom they treat as if 
 they had never known them." 
 
 "Your metaphor," returned Fothergill, "is rather elaborate and 
 'long drawn out,' though it has not much of 'linked sweetness.' 
 But if you mean to ask how men of no birth, or distinguished con- 
 nexions, and not remarkable for any shining abilities, genius, or 
 
00 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 powers of usefulness, come lo be enlisted in the ranks of fashion, I, 
 who am of no fashion myself, am liltle able to tell, particularly 
 since, as far as I have observed, there are various steps in this ladder 
 of ambition. " 
 
 " Pray enlighten me by mentioning them." 
 
 " Why, first, a most determined intrepidity of assurance, or (we 
 may as well call it by its right name) immovable impudence, but 
 directed by tact. Next, great suppleness, amounting to toadyism, 
 though adroitly concealed. Thirdly, if not first, a most lavish ex- 
 pense in every possible way that can contribute to the amusement 
 of the real sovereigns of the kingdom of fashion. Lastly (though 
 that is a dangerous venture, and often fails), a most daring assump- 
 tion of the envied crown, and a most impenetrable self-confidence 
 in maintaining possession. This has been known lo succeed in the 
 instance of one or two great and original geniuses, but has most fre- 
 quently been attended with the fate of the artist in 4 Rasselas,' who 
 attempted to fly, but failed, and was laughed at." 
 
 "Laughed at, I suppose," observed I, " not for the attempt, but 
 (he failure. But what if he succeed? Have I not reason to complain 
 of the inequality of mankind, that has put it in the power of a set 
 of men, whom you yourself call fools, to exclude me from the 
 power of- — " 
 
 "Being a fool too," interrupted Fothergill, in his tranchant 
 manner. 
 
 " If they were all fools," returned I, rallying, " there would be 
 little difficulty 5 but some of them have the character of men of 
 talents, and are distinguished in society." 
 
 "Not the less fools, quoad our question, " returned my opponent, 
 " if they are what you say, and in so far, not the less to be laughed 
 at, whatever their rank. But pray observe, that I am not myself 
 such a fool as lo run into a common-place, vulgar, unjust, and silly 
 rhapsody against persons of real fashion, who must always be also 
 persons of real distinction. I know my place, and, knowing it, 
 respect my superiors in rank and power, and acknowledge them as 
 such. It is only against persons so inferior in mind as lo be content 
 lo play the lion among asses, and plume themselves on mere for- 
 tuitous advantages which depend not on themselves; it is these, or 
 their upstart copyists, against whom I point my shafts. The last, 
 ashamed of their origin, think to conceal it by false grandeur, and, 
 above all, by an affected contempt for those whom they have left 
 behind. These are absolutely below notice; and, in regard to those 
 who have better claims on our respect, if they forfeit them, be 
 assured it is only your own cowardice, or at least a cowardly sense 
 of inferiority, that makes it troublesome to you," 
 
 "Aye! but if I am really inferior?" 
 
 " Inferior in what? Grant that you are so in birth, fortune, and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 101 
 
 even in talents, if you will—must there not be inequality wherever 
 there is man? — but till you can show that inequality in these points 
 produces inequality in happiness, or the care of heaven, you can 
 show no real superiority in their possessors." 
 
 " With you, then, servant and master are equal?" 
 
 " In my view of it— that is, as regards happiness, respectability, 
 and the care of heaven — yes ! As relative terms — that is, as regards 
 command and obedience — no ! " 
 
 " Is the servant, then, as respectable as his master?" 
 
 " In those feelings of respect, caused by the sense of power, no. 
 — In deference for a man perfect in his duty (if he is so), in that 
 slate of life to which it has pleased God to call him, indubitably 
 yes. — At any rate, even in the case of master and servant, if the 
 master plume himself on his relative superiority, he is a fool, and 
 even the servant may laugh at him, though in his sleeve. Do you 
 think iEsop did not often laugh at Xanthus, or Epictetus at Epa- 
 phroditus ? Suppose these two masters had been peacocks, or ex- 
 clusives, would not these slaves, who were so much their superiors 
 in sense, have despised them?" 
 
 " Yes 5 but I am supposing men not inferior in sense, but really 
 gifted, and well-bred." 
 
 " You suppose a contradiction 5 for no man of sense will despise 
 a person not despicable 5 and no really well-bred man would make 
 another, though his inferior, feel his inferiority. It is only your 
 people themselves of an equivocal caste— not with certainty defined 
 and acknowledged — who, from very fear of their own place, in- 
 trench themselves in distance and superciliousness. Men and women 
 of really high consideration can afford to be gracious • if they think 
 they cannot, they are really poor, and you are richer than they. At 
 best, they are mere spoiled children, and as such should be treated, 
 and laughed at like our peacock here. 
 
 " Then as to your refinement in the art of self-tormenling — your 
 resolve, that a man shall not even think you beneath him, though 
 he shew it not- — if so, how will you find it out? Upon my word you 
 are as ingeniously bent upon picking a quarrel as Sir Lucius 
 OTrigger, ' Sir, you lie.'— ' Sir, how can that be, when I have not 
 spoken a word?' — 4 Sir, a man may think a lie as well as tell one, 
 and I insist upon your fighting me.' " 
 
 I own I felt this sarcasm 5 but, not to lose any part of what I 
 wanted, I asked, " Will you let me suppose a case?" 
 
 "Willingly." 
 
 44 The Earl of A— — " 
 
 "What of him?" 
 
 " Every one talks of him as a demi-god. ' The glass of fashion. 
 The observed of all observers.' " 
 
 " Yes! but observe," said Fothergitt, " only for his fashion, and 
 
102 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 the fashion only for his earldom and his f6tes — circumstances alto- 
 gether adventitious, having nothing to do with himself. To go on 
 with your passage, though nursed in courts, he has not the 4 cour- 
 tier's eye,' much less the ' soldier's sword,' or the 'scholar's tongue-,' 
 least of all is he 
 
 4 The rose and expectancy of the fair state.' 
 
 In truth, if he had been born in ordinary life, he would be a mighty 
 ordinary fellow. I used to see him at Lord Castleton's, and took 
 measure of him, I assure you. Let me not, however, do him injus- 
 tice. It seemed to me that he had almost talents enough to rival 
 Gillows in arranging a ball-room, and Negri 1 in marshalling a 
 supper; which is no small merit. Luckily, he was ' born great;' 
 but compare him with another peer, who has ' achieved greatness' 
 and really is the ' observed of all observers,'— and mark his insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 " To wind up my two peers — the one is the saviour and glory of 
 his country — the other, like his brother exc\us\ves,fruges consu- 
 mers natij the one, the noble, the natural, Hotspur; the other, 
 the ' certain lord,' neat, trimly dress'd, who 
 
 ' Talked so like a waiting gentlewoman.' " 
 
 u But, after all, why have you mentioned Lord A ?" 
 
 " Merely because I am told he guards his nobility with a triple 
 line of exclusiveness, and is more difficult of access than the king 
 himself. I want to know if this ought to be, or can be borne." 
 
 " And why not, if he is really weak enough to think it adds to 
 his consequence, instead, as it does, of diminishing it? But what is 
 that to you or me? For my part, though no cynic, I think of Dio- 
 genes sometimes, and wish he could meet this eminent person, that 
 he might reply to him as he did to a supercilious Athenian exclu- 
 sive, who affected to despise him. 
 
 " ' You stink of garlic,' said the Athenian — * and you of musk,' 
 returned the cynic." 
 
 Here the conversation went off to other things, but I never forgot 
 it, and it eventually did me good, both at Oxford and in the world. 
 In conjunction, too, with his other lectures, it went far to confirm 
 my actual feeling as to Hastings, and my growing independence of 
 his whole family. I was soon to return into Yorkshire, and I was 
 resolved, when I should be so much nearer to them, to shew that 
 I had recovered my liberty. 
 
 Bold in my philosophy, I felt confident even as to Bertha ; we 
 shall see with what reason. 
 
 ' The predecessor of Gunter. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 S GO HOME FOR TUB LONG VACATION, AND JOIN MY FATHER AT YORK ASSIZES'— SEE 
 BERTHA ON THE ROAD.' — MY MEETINGS "WITH THE FAMILY AFTERWARDS. — GREAT 
 CHANGE IN FOLJAMBE, AND CONSEQUENT MORTIFICATIONS J BUT MY LOVE FOR BERTHA 
 IS ONLY INCREASED. 
 
 This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 
 The long vacation having now begun, I prepared to return home. 
 A branch coach was to take me into the high north road, where 
 another, more direct, was to lodge me at Ferry Bridge. Here my 
 father promised to send me his lad-of-all-work, who upon these 
 occasions was furnished with a groom's coat, of blue hunter's cloth, 
 with yellow cape and cuffs, ( the colours of the old Clifford arms), 
 for the sake of preserving some remains of respectability in the 
 faded family. 
 
 Faded that family certainly was, almost as much as the livery it- 
 self, which was only afforded once a year. This lad was to bring 
 me an old spavined horse, on which my father used generally to 
 ride into York, when he attended the grand jury, — whence he was 
 to forward it to me at Ferry Bridge, and I join him the next day. 
 
 All this fell out accordingly, and I mounted, not much in spirits, 
 although returning after a long absence to a family whom I loved, 
 and who loved me. Possibly my approach to the neighbourhood 
 of Foljambe Park may have instilled a little melancholy into me. 
 
 There were two roads from Ferry Bridge to York 5 one on the 
 left, as soon as you crossed the bridge, by which you would pass 
 the very gates of Foljambe 5 the other to the right, the beaten road 
 by Tadcaster. The last was by far the best, and most frequented 5 
 the first the most picturesque, because hilly and overlooking the 
 river. 
 
 I own I had at first inclined to the Foljambe road 5 but recollecting 
 my Oxford resolutions in regard to separating myself enlirely from 
 the family, 1 rejected it with disdain, and heroically took the Tad- 
 caster way. " Hastings shall see," said I to myself, " that I am 
 not the abject wretch he thinks me." 
 
 This effort lasted for near half a mile ; when, the way growing 
 rough, the country flat and dreary, and the river road (that is, the 
 one leading by Foljambe) looking most inviting, I again communed 
 with myself, and thought, that if really there was no comparison 
 for pleasantness between the roads, it was downright cowardice to 
 take Ihe least agreeable, merely to avoid a place which was no longer 
 
104 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 of consequence to me. The way lay all along by the river, and I 
 loved to look at a river. For these causes, no doubt, I retraced my 
 steps to the end of the town, and took the route by Foljambe. 
 
 As I proceeded, I shortened my pace, fori fell into a reverie, in 
 which, instead of pursuing the turns and windings of the river, 
 which had thus seduced me out of my way, I was rapt in meditation 
 upon all the eventful scenes that had passed since I first had made 
 acquaintance with this interesting region. I asked myself what I 
 had gained since I had left it, particularly at Oxford, or if I had 
 gained anything in knowledge of books ? — what as to mankind? or, 
 if of mankind, what as to happiness? and in this last respect, I am 
 afraid the account was a losing one. 
 
 These thoughts dwell with me more and more as I found myself 
 advancing into the well-known precincts of the park, till the high 
 and gilt vanes of the roofs, which, after all, I felt contained all that 
 was worth living for on earth, met my view. I started, as if from 
 a dream, at the discovery of a truth, painful to me, after all my reso- 
 lutions 5 for I found, that to conlinue lingering on the confines of this 
 forbidden land was destruction. I determined therefore to get free 
 as soon as possible, and prepared to pass the great gates at a gallop. 
 
 I was prevented, by their being suddenly thrown open, to allow 
 egress to a landau and six, full of company, with three out-riders, 
 which moved briskly through them, and took the road to York. It 
 was the carriage of the sheriff of the county, proceeding in stale to 
 the assizes 5 for in those days, as indeed in the present, the sheriffs 
 of this great county made it a point of etiquette to vie with one 
 another in the grandeur of their equipage. 
 
 The present sheriff, to whom the carriage belonged, was a great 
 landed squire — Mr. Mansell, Mr. Hastings' brother-in-law, and 
 Bertha's uncle— whose house being in a distant part of the county, 
 he had, from its proximity to the city, taken up his abode at the 
 park during the assizes. 
 
 In an instant all my philosophy was put to flight. For, having 
 reined up my horse to let the landau pass, with an accuracy that 
 could not be mistaken, I saw that Bertha was there. What was 
 more, she saw and knew me, and recognised me with a look which 
 thrilled me. The sparkle of her eye, which had so bereaved me of 
 my senses twelve months before, seemed to flash with new and in- 
 creased lustre, and her cheek, always blooming, was now more rosy 
 than ever with a suffusion of surprise, as I supposed, at seeing me 
 so unexpectedly in that spot. 
 
 Of her general improvement in looks, I can give no idea. The 
 lovely girl had matured into a still more lovely woman ; her shape 
 more graceful than ever, more than ever set off by her attire, always, 
 as I have related, so graceful. 
 That she knew me was plain, exclusive of the look I have dc- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 105 
 
 scribed; for as the carriage rolled on, I could perceive two gentle- 
 men leaning over the sides, looking back at me, one of whom I took 
 for Mr. Hastings himself; the other, a young man in appearance, I 
 thought was Charles. 
 
 My confusion at the whole vision ( for such it appeared ) I shall 
 never forget. All notion of galloping was at an end. I came to a 
 dead stop, and sat motionless and almost senseless on my horse, till 
 the carriage was out of sight, which it soon was, and I left to re- 
 cover as I could. 
 
 Alas ! what became of my philosophy ? Let those who ever really 
 loved answer. What a change can one little minute makfe in a man's 
 firmest resolves ! What then, in mine, which were none of the 
 firmest? The best, or the worst ( I don't know which ), was, that 
 I turned sophist upon this occasion, and philosophized the other 
 way. I found that I had been a sad coward in thinking of flight. 1 
 ought to have braved the danger, to have any thing like a triumph, 
 and I resolved to do so still. Bertha, or Bertha's father, had never 
 changed towards me; it was a duly I owed to common politeness as 
 well as gratitude to wait upon them ; and this I determined to do 
 as soon as I reached York. Whatever, our reason, how do our in- 
 clinations cheat us ! 
 
 Behold me now in the ancient, and, for the present, crowded 
 city of York, amidst hundreds of busy creatures, drawn together by 
 all that could impel men to congregate ; care, anxiety, vanity ; alarm 
 for property, alarm for life, curiosity ; pleasure, ambition, duty ! 
 Nor was ostentation the least among the motives of the crowds who 
 visited the town for the activity and splendour displayed within it. 
 Yet was I uninterested and unawed by any thing I saw ; dogged 5 
 silent ; thoughtful ; rapt ; in short, alone in crowds. 
 
 I was received by my father with his usual affection and plainness ; 
 but he put off detailed or lengthy communication for the moment , 
 having been summoned to the Castle on assize business, and left me 
 for the present alone. Being thus my own master, in conformity 
 with the brave resolution I had taken to present myself to the Has- 
 tings' family, I sought the inn where the sheriff had put up, which 
 was soon found, and taking my station in the yard, the mere sight 
 of his horses, panting as they were rubbed down, after their rapid 
 exertions, caused me a thrill from the associations which they bred, 
 surprising even to myself. When a young man, and still more I 
 suppose when a boy, is in love, what trifles, what feathers may not 
 give him pleasure, or pain ! 
 
 I met Mr. Hastings' own man in the yard, but he did not seem 
 to recognise me. He did not move his hat, and I was angry. But 
 Mrs. Margaret, Bertha's own woman, of whom J formerly made 
 honourable mention, crossing also, with a band-box in her hand, 
 dropped me a courtesy, nay, saluted me by name, and said, her 
 
106 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 master and Miss Bertha would be quite glad to see me. Mrs. Mar- 
 garet was plain, and seared with the small-pox. I never before 
 thought her otherwise, buther cheek now seemed absolutely smooth. 
 
 But Foljambe himself now appeared. He had seen me from a 
 gallery which went round the inn yard, and descended, whether to 
 greet me kindly or not, I did not know, but his presence GUed me 
 with an undefinable compound of feelings. I had still good-will 
 towards him, and my sense of supposed affronts having been dimi- 
 nished by time and absence, I felt my old regard revive. Nor did 
 I mind his quizzing me, or the illustrious Rozinante, as he called 
 him, on which he had seen me on the road. 
 
 4 'He must be blood itself, " said he, pertly , "or he would never have 
 brought you here so soon." — Mem.; I was here an hour after them. 
 
 Though I was nettled at this, I hoped it was mere Christ Church 
 flippancy, and at least it was better than the reserve and stiffness 
 which my fears had anticipated. 
 
 44 I assure you, 1 ' added he with vivacity, 44 we all, and Bertha in 
 particular, thought you a very fine horseman, and your horse quite 
 knowing." 
 
 At the sound of that name T reddened to the ears, and though so 
 full of her image, could hardly stammer out the usual inquiries 
 after all the family. 
 
 " Why my father," said Foljambe; " is well, and as for Bertha, 
 she is grown quite a woman, and, needs must, for she already be- 
 gins to flirt; but I tell her she must wait till she has done with that 
 old Ma'amselle La Porte, and is really come out, which she is not 
 yet. The old virgin opposed her coming here on that account, but 
 her cousin, Frank Mansell, who is to dance with her to-night at 
 the ball, as the son of the sheriff, carried it hollow." 
 
 Had I been struck with thunder I do not think I could have felt 
 a greater agony of heart than these words occasioned. I was abso- 
 lutely sick, and looked so, I suppose, for my friend asked me if I 
 was unwell. " Indeed," said he, 44 you were always a tender one, 
 and though you have, no doubt, fed well among those bluff beef- 
 eaters ( I must not call them animals) at Queen's, you are not more 
 rubicund than you were formerly. I wish you had been at Eton 5 a 
 botlle of claret at the Christopher, and a run with the King's hounds, 
 would have done you more good than all the sturdy Crackenthorpe 
 lectures, by which you profited so much in your learning, and so 
 little in your heallh." 
 
 I liked this less and less, but particularly when he continued, 44 1 
 suppose the old lord ( for so he always designated my father ) de- 
 signs you for some quiet, moping profession, and I have no doubt 
 you will make a capital parson." 
 
 From all this I gathered that the punishment, as I in my sim- 
 plicity supposed it, which he had undergone in being expelled for 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 107 
 
 contumacy, was no punishment at all ; and that he had settled the 
 matter with his father, or his tone would not have been so un- 
 changed. The fact was, he gloried in it. 
 
 The flippancy of Foljambe's speech, however, augured no good 
 to my hopes that our friendship might revive, which the proximity 
 to Bertha now made me wish, particularly when, with something 
 like former frankness, and putting his arm within mine, he said, 
 "Come, you must go and pay your duty to the governor (his 
 phrase for his father ), whose horror at the growing insubordination 
 of young people will be at its height if you neglect to come to the 
 levee he always holds at the assizes \ and besides, the princess, my 
 sister, who wishes already to enlarge the number of her subjects 
 beyond country cousin Frank, expects you to pay court to her, not- 
 withstanding Rozinante." 
 
 Whether this was a true account as to his sister, or a mere coin- 
 age of a light moment to divert himself, the very notion that I was 
 expected to pay court to the dear and noble Bertha thrilled my very 
 heart, and I followed him up the great inn stairs to their lodging- 
 room, with such emotions as the reader, if he is a " decayed gen- 
 tleman," and has ever been in love with a person beyond himself, 
 may imagine. 
 
 But here, whatever might have been my uncertainties about 
 Charles, every cloud, every doubt, every thought derogatory to the 
 perfection of Bertha's delightful nature, was dissipated. On seeing 
 me at first, gladnessseemed to leap into her countenance. The dazzle 
 of her eye, which ever in her denoted an hilarity that springs from 
 the most perfect innocence, absolutely illuminated, not merely her- 
 self, but all about her. She looked surprised, certainly, but also 
 pleased, and ( as I thought, but was not sure ) blushed. 
 
 My chains were strong enough before, but this look, indescri- 
 bable in its effect, would have rivetled them, had it been necessary, 
 for ever. Ah ! dearest Bertha, whatever power thy attractions af- 
 terwards continued to hold over me, it never exceeded, and scarcely 
 equalled, the emotion caused by that single look. I was all tumult, 
 and fear, and confusion, while she was gracious and self-possessed, 
 and yet so modest in her expression, lhat when I approached to pay 
 my compliments, I perfectly hated myself for the awkwardness of 
 which I was conscious in offering them. 
 
 What is it that makes this difference in the sexes, which almost 
 invariably, at this young age, elevates the elegant girl a hundred 
 degrees above the booby boy ? It affected me the more, being so 
 transported as I was to see her again ; nor could I then, or after- 
 wards, at all unravel how one two years younger than myself 
 should, merely, as I thought, because she was a female, be so evi- 
 dently and so greatly above me in ease of manners. 
 
 Strange to say, although more than ever ready to adore the 
 
108 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 ground she stood upon, I was ready also to quarrel with her for it, 
 and even deplored her superiority in good-breeding as much as her 
 distance in rank and condition of life. I was, however, much too 
 young a casuist, as well as too delighted at her presence, for my 
 embarrassment to conceal my joy. A glimpse of heaven seemed to 
 open upon me. I forgot in my rapture all the distance between us, 
 and, what is more, that her brother and cousin were close by me, 
 and, clasping my hands in a sort of ecstasy, I exclaimed, "My 
 God! Is it pT&sible that I am remembered?" 
 
 Pretty bold this for the humble youth, so conscious of his in- 
 feriority of lot, and scarcely free from the charge of easy familiarity 
 even in a equal, who had been so little in her company. But thus 
 it is that love for a while levels all conditions, and " lakes no count 
 of time." 
 
 Neither Bertha nor her brother knew that my broodings over her 
 image, and the recollections of her character, had been incessant, 
 and though twelve months had passed since I had seen her, I had 
 seemed to have been present with her the whole of that interval, 
 My speech, therefore, thus extorted from me by my surprise, 
 though only natural to myself, to them appeared extraordinary, 
 perhaps impertinent. It certainly was critical, for, from whatever 
 motive, Miss Hastings changed from that heavenly openness of 
 countenance, in which she was as inimitable as unimitated by all 
 women, to a retreating reserve, which put smiles to flight, and 
 seemed to crush my very heart. 
 
 I observed, too, that Foljambe looked most seriously displeased, 
 and both he and his cousin measured me with their eyes, as if in 
 anger, if not in contempt. 
 
 A revulsion instantly look place. I felt riven from head to foot : 
 my pulse stopped, and I was giddy from sensations which for the 
 life of me I could not understand. I had ten thousand fears, but of 
 what exact kind, was beyond me. All I knew was, that I feared I 
 had offended Bertha, but how I did not know. 
 
 The thought made me miserable, and was not diminished when 
 in her cousin I thought I saw an angry rival. I was in agony lest 
 Bertha might have thought me disrespectful. I felt I had been too 
 free, and my miserable insignificance pressed me down like the 
 weight of peine forte et dure. 
 
 And yet, when I thought of old times, and beheld the altered 
 brow of Foljambe, and still more, the pert superciliousness of the 
 cousin, my spirits rallied; my Norman blood again warmed, and, 
 decayed as it was, I could have quarrelled with them both, a ou- 
 trance, in very relief to my feelings. 
 
 Little, indeed, do those know, who give themselves up to a pas- 
 sion like mine, and the object is above them, the daily and hourly 
 mortifications or unfounded hopes they are doomed to feel from 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 109 
 
 every incident thai occurs. A look, a smile of doubtful character, a 
 frown, a mistaken construction, an awkwardness, an unguarded 
 word — all these are often to the jealous " confirmation strong" of 
 whatever feeling is uppermost. They may be pregnant with happi- 
 ness or unhappiness, and yet are possibly all unfounded, or mis- 
 taken; at best, they may be wofully exaggerated. 
 
 JSb ! though I have said, and repeat, that love will elevate and 
 purify the soul, particularly in the young, and though, under all 
 ils mortifications, mine for this enchanting girl, so much my su- 
 perior, gave me sometimes a bliss beyond all price, still I would 
 never advise an ingenuous, high-spirited youth to aspire to one 
 greatly above him. The throes of doubt, " the pangs of despised 
 love/' and the resentment at its being so, cannot but lacerate a 
 bosom made for better things, and all that Spenser said so feelingly 
 of the miseries of disappointed ambition may every word of it be 
 applied to a heart that places its love beyond its sphere — 
 
 "To lose good days that might be better spent, 
 To waste long nights in pensive discontent; 
 To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, 
 To feed on hope, to pine in fear and sorrow, » 
 To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares, 
 To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs, 
 To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, 
 To spend, to give, to want, to be undone." 
 
 All this is that unhappy person's lot, who sets his affections so high 
 above himself as to extinguish all hope of success. 
 
 There! I have given my young readers a lesson : whether, or 
 how, I profited by it myself, the sequel will show. 
 
 An awkwardness of a minute or two was the consequence of my 
 joyful but too familiar exclamation at the sight of Bertha, and I was 
 glad to be in some measure relieved from it by the entrance of 
 Mr. Hastings. Yet I know not that I gained much by the reception 
 given me by that stalely gentleman. He offered me his white and 
 delicate hand lo touch, but certainly not to squeeze 5 yet he observed 
 I was much improved. Strange to say, I did not like this. It made 
 me too much of a boy, where I wanted to appear an accomplished 
 man. He then said he supposed he should see my father on the 
 grand jury, where he believed he was sometimes summoned. 
 
 I thought this contemptuous, and was angry, and my anger ra- 
 ther braced me. Yet all this was but jealous fancy ; for at that very 
 lime, as I afterwards learned, Mr. Hastings wished to thank me for 
 the good counsel which Foljambe could not conceal i had given him 
 in his quarrel with the Dean, which drove him from Oxford. 
 
 Exclusive of this, though Mr. Hastings had all the reserve which 
 belonged to a man conscious of superior degree, his real good-breed- 
 ing never allowed him to show it so as lo distress another. It was 
 
110 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 myself that made things appear wrong ; so that when he motioned 
 me, as I thought too condescendingly, to take a chair, in my then 
 temper, I was dissatisfied 5 but when he occupied himself with the 
 newspapers, I was still more displeased, and resolved to take my 
 leave. 
 
 I sat awhile in a sort of sullen silence, not at all relieved by the 
 taciturnity of the rest of the party. This distressed me still more, 
 for I thought it was assumed on purpose to show that I was now 
 unwelcome; and this no sooner darted into my mind, than I rose 
 and abruptly left the room, with a mixture of mauvaise honte and 
 indignation, which made me any thing but happy. I stopped not to 
 examine whether I had any reason for this; but, with the weakness 
 and injustice of a jealous person, conscious of inferiority, and at 
 the same time with no small portion of pride himself, I taxed the 
 whole party with pride unbearable. I asked myself what I had said, 
 or done, to be ashamed of? If Bertha, said I, thinks I have been 
 impertinent by showing joy at seeing her — if she is grown so great 
 a lady as to forget her companion and playfellow, or slight him 
 because she came to York in a coach and six — why Bertha is not 
 the girl for me, and I will think of her no more. 
 
 These heroics lasted all the way down stairs, and in the inn yard, 
 and, no doubt, I looked, as I felt, a hero, as far as the very street. 
 But as that street was over-looked by the balcony of the room I had 
 left, I could not help turning my eyes upwards, with I know not 
 what expectation, when it was my fortune to behold once more the 
 fair being who had caused all this perturbation, so innocent of all I 
 had accused her of, nay, I should say, so kind and like herself, 
 that my anger and spirit were gone, and I was again that humbled 
 creature who could have fallen down and worshipped her in the 
 very street itself. 
 
 A quelled rebellion, they say, strengthens a sovereign. It is cer- 
 tain that from that moment Bertha, without an attempt even to un- 
 derstand her, was more my sovereign than ever. Hopeless and sad, 
 I yet felt a secret gladness in having thus, of my own will, with no 
 helps from explanation, for which there had been no possible open- 
 ing, restored her to the place she had possessed with me ; and this 
 made me happy. 
 
 Such is love ! 
 
 I now no longer knew where I was. The animated scene about 
 me gave me no interest ; the place, busy as it was, could supply 
 nothing to my observation. A fit of absence took possession of me 
 for the rest of the day ; I could neither eat nor talk to any one, still 
 less listen to my father's account of the calendar, and, least of all, 
 superintend the rubbing down of the old horse, as he desired me. In 
 truth, I was absorbed in the endeavour to unravel, if possible, the 
 mysteries which seemed to have attended my reception by the only 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. Ill 
 
 people in the world whose good or ill reception could cause me a 
 thought. I cannot be said to have reasoned on my position 5 a man 
 in love never reasons ; but it became essential to my peace to un- 
 derstand both Bertha and her family. 
 
 Fool ! coxcomb ! blockhead ! As if it signified the toss of a doit 
 what were their sentiments concerning me. How little do we ever 
 know what is good for us ! 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 GO TO A BALL, AM MORE AND MORE CHARMED BY BERTHA, BUT ILL-USED 
 BY HER BROTHER. 
 
 Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe, 
 A villain that is hither come in spite, 
 To mock at our solemnity this night. 
 Shakspeare.— Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 A new and very different scene now opened. The sound oflhe harp, 
 the tabor, and at least a dozen fiddles, had resounded, and a thousand 
 lights had blazed through the windows of the York Assembly Rooms, 
 for more than an hour, during which I had paced the outside of 
 the building, a martyr to jealousy, uncertainty, doubt, and fear. If 
 these were mingled with a little, a very little hope, it was only be- 
 cause, whatever our misery, that last support and best gift of heaven 
 never thoroughly abandons us. 
 
 I had been in a thousand minds whether to enter the ball-room, 
 after waiting to see Bertha go in. Yet she was more than ever at- 
 tractive by her elegance 5 for the grace and lustre of her habiliments, 
 in which her father always took a peculiar pride, were set off with 
 slill more power by the lustre of her person. But she was accom- 
 panied by her family, wilh whom I was at least in doubtful humour, 
 and closely attended by her cousin, with whom my humour was not 
 doubtful at all. I therefore staid behind, listening to the music, and 
 chewing indeed the cud of bitter fancy. The certainty that her 
 cousin was dancing with her maddened me ; and the apprehension 
 that she was smiling upon him did not restore me. 
 
 Twice I went in, and progressed half-way up the room. Twice 
 I returned, afraid to encounter them. On my third essay, I saw 
 Mr. Mansell leading her down the dance, and, to my great delight, 
 he danced abominably ill. Could I fail to recollect the happy lime 
 when, at Foljambe, she was so amused by the lessons which she 
 insisted should be given to Charles and me 5 how playfully she 
 laughed at his endeavours, and how often commended mine? 
 
 I confess the envy wilh which I now saw Mansell was consoled 
 
112 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 by the thought, that if I had been in his place, I could at least have 
 done her more justice. Presently, indeed, his awkwardness was so 
 great, he was so out in the figure and in the time, that in very hope- 
 lessness of his getting right, and annoyed at his being an object of 
 criticism by the spectators, she said, though with good-nature, 66 per- 
 haps we had better sit down." The discomfited youth was too glad 
 to do so, and led her to the first sofa that offered, which happened 
 (strange chance, I thought,) to be the one on which I was silling. 
 
 It was scarce possible for her not to greet me, had she been disin- 
 clined to do so. But she was not disinclined, and gave me both looks 
 and words, which haun ted me all night afterwards. The reserve of the 
 morning seemed completely gone. With her own frankness, she said 
 she *was glad I had come to the ball, which (0 ! how I marked and 
 treasured the words !) she was afraid I would not do. What could 
 possibly make her afraid? What did it signify lo her whether I 
 came or not? These were questions lhat did not fail to offer them- 
 selves all the while she was speaking, and covered me with blushes 
 of I know not what import, except lhat it was one of happiness. But 
 when she went on lo remind me of our little dancing lessons at the 
 park, aud hoped I had not lost the Highland fling, I felt a tumult 
 of pleasure, proceeding, I fear, in some measure from vanity, but 
 also, I am sure, from feelings far more pure. Altogether they were 
 indescribable, nor, were I to live my years over again, could I ever 
 forget the arch and frank expression of her whole air, manner, and 
 voice, in which those reminiscences were conveyed. 
 
 How was this? and why, if every word she uttered was no more 
 than what any other person in the same situation might have used 
 — why was I left by it in almost a trance of emotion? So, however, 
 it has been from the beginning of time, and will be to the end of it. 
 All can feel — none analyse — the wayward movements which the 
 wayward passion lhat engrossed me can assume. What brought me 
 to my senses, which for a moment I seemed to have lost, was the 
 effect which Ihis little raillery had upon the cousin, who looked 
 proud, mortified, and angry, yet did not on that account escape a 
 scolding for his awkwardness, and depriving her of her dance ; 
 " for which," said she, " at your desire I have rebelled against all 
 propriety and Mademoiselle La Porte. Upon my word, if I were 
 you, I would discharge my tulor, with whom you say you make 
 such progress, and take a dancing master, a much beller tutor, in 
 his stead ; at least if, as you say you do, you wish to please the 
 ladies. There is Mr. Clifford now, who hardly ever had a lesson 
 except the one at Foljambe, which I have been talking of, yet he 
 never made a blunder in the figure, much less murdered the time. 
 But there is papa ; I must go and make him get me another partner, 
 for I positively won't sit still all the evening. " 
 
 So saying, she sprang up to meet Mr. Hastings, who was coming 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 113 
 
 down the room with the sheriff, and by her gestures and arch looks 
 at us, indicated that she was shewing up her cousin to his father 
 and uncle. Whether she mentioned me, or how, if she did, I would 
 have just given all I was worth to know, though that was not much. 
 
 Young Mansell, never very sweet-tempered, now looked sourness 
 itself. The very slight introduction to him which I had had in the 
 morning would have left me with no wish to claim his acquaintance, 
 but if it had, it was evident he had no wish to accord it, and I in- 
 dulged it by leaving him in full possession of his sofa. There he 
 shouldered every body that came near him, and exhibited every 
 mark of spleen, so ridiculously, that though ihe son of the sheriff, 
 and I of a decayed gentleman, I thought 1 would not have exchanged 
 situations with him. 
 
 In truth, this and the enchantment thrown about me by the con- 
 descending recollection of Bertha filled me with a pride of self-respect 
 and independence, for which I was all the belter. It was now, how- 
 ever, put to a severe trial, for in five minutes I perceived Foljambe 
 with his discarded cousin arm in arm, and apparently in deep con- 
 ference, and after often turning his eyes to me, he separated from 
 Mansell to accost me, which at first gave me pleasure. Soon, how- 
 ever, I found the Christ Church leaven had returned, in an altered 
 manner, and so altered a tone, that I felt hurt and confounded. 
 
 Having not over civilly said 44 1 did not know you came to these 
 places, especially as you do not seem to have any acquaintances 
 here," he went on to tell me that he supposed, from what he heard 
 had been passing, I meant to ask his sister to dance 5 " and I only 
 think it right to tell you," added, he, observing my unfeigned sur- 
 prise, " that you will not succeed if you do, and had therefore better 
 not propose it. To be fair with you, my father will not be pleased, 
 and as she has declared she cannot dance any more with her cousin, 
 I have just engaged her to my friend Sir Harry Melford, for whom 
 she is wailing at the top of the room." 
 
 Sir Harry Melford was a fashionable young man of five-and- 
 Iwenty. He had been one of the ornaments both of Eton and Christ 
 Church, in scholarship far above mediocrity, and in all his exercises 
 much renowned. With much cultivation of mind, he had strong 
 passions, which he concealed by great decorum of manner, so that 
 they never seemed to plunge him into excesses. The chief of them 
 was a warm devotion to the ladies, which, with an uncommon fine 
 person, and most insinuating address, enabled him so far to indulge 
 it with success, that he was thought by most ladies irresistible. 
 
 His figure, title, and estate, added to this disposition of his, 
 made him a very rcdou table personage with the sex •, nor was his 
 popularity diminished with either man or woman for being perfectly 
 well-bred. No one, therefore, could say (not Mr. Hastings himself} 
 that he was not a proper partner for Mr, Hastings' daughter ; nor 
 I. - 8 
 
114 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 did Mr. Hastings' son think him by any means an improper com- 
 panion for himself. 
 
 But this, I thought, gave no right to Charles to address me as he 
 did, especially as his seeming fear of my presumptuous intentions, 
 instilled into him, no doubt, by Mansell, was the reverse of founded. 
 Of this I informed him in a tone as distant as his own- — indeed, 
 with a sort of haughty indifference, under the guise of an assumed 
 humility, surprising to myself as well as to him. 
 
 "I beg to tell you, Foljambe," said I, 4 'in the first place, that 
 you have been most grossly misinformed, for I never had the inten- 
 tion, much less the actual presumption, to present myself as a 
 partner to your sister. Nor need you have been so careful to re- 
 mind me that I am still the very humble person she, as well as 
 yourself, once condescended to notice. Your fear, therefore, that I 
 should even attempt to stand in the way of your friend, Sir Harry, 
 is at least groundless, and your caution, for which, however, I 
 thank you, might have been spared." 
 
 The effect of this speech, I own, gave me pleasure. I saw that 
 he was disconcerted. He reddened, bit his lips, and his air of supe- 
 riority almost abandoned him. But as he expressed no compunc- 
 tion, and seemed ashamed of appearing ashamed, I was at no 
 pains to ask or give further explanations. A sudden elevation of 
 feeling came over me, and, for a moment, I thought myself his 
 equal. I had loved him well enough to give an under look, to see 
 if there were a stretched out hand of offered reconciliation 5 but none 
 appearing, I turned upon my heel and left him, with a disgust far 
 from concealed. 
 
 At first I thought of quilting the room, but this my newly called 
 up spirit forbade, and, with a boldness which astonished my own 
 mind, I walked to the top of it, just as Sir Harry an Bertha had led 
 off the dance. Will it be believed, that I saw it without any other 
 emotion than that of insulted pride. And yet of pride, Bertha, the 
 dear, the natural Bertha, had never herself been guilty. She had 
 been grave and reserved in the morning, but afterwards had delight- 
 fully renewed the frankness and vivacity which belonged to her — 
 proving that if for a moment she had changed, it was, perhaps, to 
 check the liberty of my own eagerness, or perhaps, as I now began 
 to think, influenced by her brother and cousin. No : with this 
 loved being I had and could have no quarrel, for to see her was 
 to put you in good humour with yourself and all the world. 
 
 Not so with her brother, my former friend, now I feared, my 
 estranged acquaintance. The words, "You will not succeed*, to 
 be fair with you, my father will be displeased," and " I have en- 
 gaged her to my friend Sir Harry—" these words tingled in my 
 ears, and gave many a quick beat to my pulse 5 and though my heart 
 swelled as I beheld his sister with inimitable grace coming down 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 115 
 
 Ihe dance with a partner, il must be owned, very different from her 
 awkward cousin, yet the renewed slight I felt her brother had put 
 upon me, in his own and his father's name, made me survey Ber- 
 tha herself with something like defiance. 
 
 Well, thought I, as she flitted by with the happy Sir Harry, let 
 him plume himself upon his fashionable, and forget his Sedbergh 
 friend— what is he, or even this sister of whom he is so chary, to — 
 
 I would have said me (with whatever sincerity), when, as strange 
 fortune would have it, an accident put a stop to all reflection, in 
 calling upon me to exert myself to save the principal subject of it 
 from (in a ball-room at least) an .unpleasant situation 5 — for the end 
 of one of the ropes, which separated the dancers into two sets, 
 having been heedlessly left on the floor, caught her light foot, and 
 losing her balance, she would have fallen on her face, had not I, 
 who with all my pride was anxiously watching her, caught the 
 hand she stretched out for help, and, though not without effort, 
 prevented an absolute fall. 
 
 What were not my sensations when I fell this hand necessarily 
 pressing mine to restore her balance ! Whal, when I heard her, in 
 the softest voice in the world, utter sweet words of thanks, and 
 when Sir Harry, who had come up, observed how lucky it was that 
 that gentleman was so near, she replied to him, but with a look 
 at me, which searched me — ' ' lucky indeed! and how kindly and 
 nicely he saved me." 
 
 The look and the words together put all my pride to flight, nor 
 could I help wondering that she should with such emphasis call 
 that help kind to her, which any one, Ihe most indifferent, would 
 in the same situation have received. 
 
 How did I not afterwards brood upon this ! But though totally 
 softened in regard to her, I was as punctilious as ever in my reso- 
 lutions as to her family. These, hearing she had had an actual fall 
 (report never loses in its progress), had now approached, and were 
 eagerly asking if she was hurt. 
 
 "If I am not," replied she, "it is entirely owing to Mr. De 
 Clifford, who was fortunately so near, and so cleverly saved me." 
 
 Mr. Hastings gave me a bow, which, in truth, was one of hearty 
 kindness, for much he loved his child, and Foljambe a IogIc which 
 I thought cold and I was by no means flattered when young 
 Mansell said, he wondered Sir Harry had not been more alert than 
 to leave her for assistance to a stranger. 
 
 The indignation which this word created sank deep into my 
 mind. It was ungracious, unkind, and even ungrateful, small as 
 the service had been ; at any rate it was insulting, and I vowed 
 vengeance. My vengeance, however, was only to resolve to leave 
 the room and go home. 
 
 The rooml left ; but before I went home, unable to think of sleep, 
 
116 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 I wandered by the side of Ihe Ouse, which lay in my way lo my 
 inn, and I did this in a frame of mind far from enviable. And yel I 
 had received some little comfort even in the moment of quitting 
 the assembly ; for I passed Bertha as I retired, who exclaimed, in a 
 tone which I thought (perhaps it was only thought) said more than 
 the words expressed, "What, going ! and so soon?" 
 
 The nightingales which I have since heard in the moonlight 
 south, in the same sort of wandering, never were to me half so mu- 
 sical as those few and simple words. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE RESTLESSNESS OF A LOVER. 
 
 Is love a tender thing? It is loo rough, 
 
 Too rude, too boist'rous, and it pricks like thorns. 
 
 Siukspeare.— Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 How sweet is the description of youth, which calls it u the April 
 of our years ! " What delightful promises is not this month sup- 
 posed by the poets to hold out? 
 
 " A day in April never comes so sweet, 
 
 To tell us lovely summer is at hand." 
 
 " Youth, the April of man's life," 
 " Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee 
 
 Calls back the lovely April of his prime." 
 
 So says Shakspeare. 
 
 " Brisk as the April buds in primrose season." 
 
 So says Milton 5 and so, or to the same tune, a variety of others. 
 
 Now, for ihe life of me, I never could discover, from my own 
 experience at least, a reason for the similarity between April and 
 youth, except that in both there are a great many fools and a great 
 many tears ; I hat in both is to be found a perpetual succession of 
 hopes disappointed, expectations thwarted, the cup of Tantalus, or 
 ihe friar's lanlhorn of Puck. 
 
 Thus it was with me 5 for in this supposed genial period, my life 
 had received its first shock, by the total darkness that followed so 
 suddenly the little gleam of hope which shone for a moment over 
 my renewed intercourse with Hastings. 
 
 I slept not the whole night of the ball, or if I dozed for a mo- 
 ment, the nymph-like step of Bertha responding to that of Sir 
 Harry, or the cold, changed eye of Charles, like Macbeth, " mur- 
 dered sleep." I had read in Thomson of 
 
 " The charming agonies of love, 
 Whose misery delights" 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 117 
 
 Never was anything, I thought, so false. I had agonies, but they 
 were not charming $ misery, but it did not delight. Thomson, how- 
 ever, I found correct in other passages on the same subject. For 
 the next day, to divert my thoughts, if possible, I had explored the 
 libraries of York, and had accompanied my father to a public din- 
 ner, where persons of my own degree strove to make me converse. 
 But, alas ! I found 
 
 " Books were but formal dulness, tedious friends ; 
 And sad amid the social band I sat, 
 Lonely and inattentive." 
 
 In point of fact, though these companions of my father were ex- 
 ceedingly honest persons, to look at, hear, or join with them, 
 made me unhappy, because neither their rank, nor manners, nor 
 accomplishments, could bear a comparison with those who moved 
 in the higher and more elegant circle which had charmed me, not- 
 withstanding my resentment. Anything now that breathed not of 
 that brilliant atmosphere which seemed to surround Bertha, so far 
 from having charms, was even disgusting. 
 
 This was my first taste of the misfortune which attends a de- 
 cayed gentleman, who, no matter from what cause, wilfully lifts 
 himself above the sphere to which his family has fallen 5 and I 
 began more than ever to feel the sagacity of Folhergill's advice, 
 and to deplore that I had not obeyed it. 
 
 And yet the little progress I had made in the society I so admired, 
 or rather the many steps I had retrograded from it, was loo cruelly 
 proved to my feelings at this moment not to make me regret this 
 turn in my lot. It was not that my father's associates had anything 
 uncouth or repulsive about them ; that their station was other than 
 respectable ; or even that they had not the general advantages of 
 common education. They were not indeed able to make or quote 
 verses like Foljambe; they were all men of business, and cared not 
 for song, nor possibly for love. But this it was that made my too 
 sickly pride, added to the devotion of my young love, look upon 
 them with aversion. Yet they had shrewd, sensible heads, reason- 
 ably honest hearts, and understood the world, practically at least, 
 if they did not philosophize upon human nature. 
 
 Had I not therefore lain under a spell, which warped my mind, 
 and left it anything but free, I might have found pleasure as well as 
 profit in communicating with them, But this, not only the slate of 
 my heart, " sighing like furnace," but the taste I had imbibed for 
 elegance, and what may be called tournure, forbade. Tournure, 
 indeed, was not a term then in my vocabulary for I had not then 
 known the charming woman who taught it me — herself Ihe most 
 elegant pattern of its most finished character. Nor did I use the 
 word in. examining why I felt the distaste I had for everything that 
 
118 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 did not belong to it. But the idea made itself understood, though I 
 could not describe it in language, and my feelings told me plainly 
 enough that it was all traceable to Bertha. Everything that did not 
 seem in connection with her and hers (even though with hers I had 
 so bitterly quarrelled) was vapid, dull, tasteless, and uninteresting. 
 
 Hence, though I had sense enough to feel that in my station of 
 life 1 had no right to look to the refinement of higher classes, yet 
 the fascination of manners which I met not at home, and the con- 
 sciousness of our descent from ancient nobles, would never let me 
 think that I was that miserable character under which I have desig- 
 nated myself — of a decayed gentleman. Decayed I might be, but 
 not the less, I thought, a gentleman ; and this only heightened the 
 delicacy of feeling always created by love. 
 
 For this I took myself to task, but that did not help me; and 1 
 fear I passed with my father's friends, perhaps with my father him- 
 self, for a sullen youth, stranger to good manners, possibly to good- 
 nature. It is certain, that, whether from this over-delicacy, or the 
 resentful recollection of the evening before, the day after the ball 
 was the least happy of my life. 
 
 Another, however, now opened before me, though, as it hap- 
 pened, it was devoted to the same engrossing subject. For, not- 
 withstanding I had resolved to wean myself from those who had so 
 mortified, nay, as I thought, so insulted me, and therefore meant 
 to pass the morning in the courts, I found that on leaving our inn, 
 instead of turning to the right towards the Castle, I turned to the 
 left towards the sheriffs' lodging. For what purpose this was, I 
 had not lime to ask my own breast, for I was there before I knew 
 where I was. I found, aiso, I had been particularly attentive to my 
 dress,— with what view, let those who can understand me explain. 
 I did not exactly at the time explain it to myself, but felt a sort of 
 anxious curiosity as to the persons I might meet with in my walk ; 
 and that walk brought me exactly opposite to those windows which 
 I knew contained a pearl of price, though never to be worn by me. 
 
 For one who had vowed such spirit and dignity, I was afraid I 
 did not come off well. Bertha was in the balcony arrayed for a walk 
 with her brother and her cousin. She looked more lovely than 
 ever, but not for me; for, occupied with her friends, neither she, 
 nor they, I verily believe, saw me; and I record this in proof of 
 the folly that possessed me : for, will it be believed that I pouted, 
 nay, was fiercely angry, because they had not chosen to recognise 
 a person whom I would not believe they had not seen ? If it is thus 
 I am to be treated, said I — if all my devotion is to be so neglected, 
 adieu to Bertha — adieu to Foljambe for ever. 
 
 As to Mansell, he was not worth an adieu ; and I was stalking 
 off with great dignity, when I met Sir Harry, bending towards the 
 inn, evidently to join the select parly above. He looked so happy. 
 
ok, 1Mb CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 119 
 
 (hat I haled him j nor was Ihe feeling diminished by the certainty 
 I felt that he intended not to notice me. Yet mark, how wrong we 
 may be ! Sir Harry had naturally good breeding spite of his title 
 and 8,000/. a year, which, like the fool I was, and in the very spirit 
 of a decayed gentleman, I chose to think would prevent the pos- 
 session of that pleasing attribute. I therefore felt surprised that- 
 recollecting me for the person who had saved Bertha from a fall the 
 evening before — he actually, and not ungracefully, gave me a bow 
 of recognition. My decayed gentility thus relieved, Sir Harry rose 
 instantly in my esteem— nay, immediately became in my eyes him- 
 self " a marvellous proper gentleman." 
 
 What children — or rather what fools— are we, high as we think 
 ourselves in the scale of being ! 
 
 To return to my tale : I walked quickly on, resolving to think no 
 more of the sheriff's party. What could it be to me what they were 
 doing, or what going to do ? Yet as Bertha, in the balcony, was 
 equipped for a walk, her beautiful green pelisse would not get out 
 of my mind 5 so I thought I would just stop at the end of the street, 
 from mere curiosity, to observe where they were going. Of course 
 to the Castle, as I thought, and I therefore resolved not to go there 
 myself, for why should I throw myself in their way? They, how- 
 ever, look the road to Bishoplhorpe, and most consistently I changed 
 my resolve, and, taking a shorter cut, determined to meet them on 
 the road. I will shew them, said I, that I am master of myself, and 
 they nothing to me. As to Mansell, he is a clown, who cannot 
 dance \ Foljambe has long turned coxcomb, and belied all his pre- 
 tensions to sincerity ; and for Sir Harry— now for the life of me 1 
 could find no fault with Sir Harry, and was almost sorry that he had 
 not treated me ill, instead of condescending to know me. 
 
 With these feelings I met the parly full in their front, within a 
 few yards of the palace *, whither they were bound. 
 
 How many associations are wound about that palace, which after- 
 wards became a source of some of my happiest recollections— happy 
 no longer. Yet can I not refuse to record (when thus presented to 
 my memory) the pleasure I had in being noticed by the venerable 
 and venerated being who, in those days, presided over that spot in 
 patriarchal dignity and patriarchal love. He has long slept with his 
 fathers, and left this earthly abode for a better, together with all 
 belonging to him whom it is any pleasure to remember : and it may 
 be politic to touch but slightly upon days and feelings which are 
 gone, never to return. 
 
 The party all seemed struck with surprise at meeting me ; the 
 men, as I thought, annoyed, and rather puzzled how I was to be 
 greeted. But with Bertha, dear Bertha! there was no hesitation 
 
 1 The Archbishop's, 
 
120 
 
 BE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 Her eye, indeed, could never forget to sparkle, whatever her mood 5 
 but though I might be deceived by its brilliancy, I could not mis- 
 take a sort of blush, and the real smile with which she returned my 
 respectful salute. This, however, her escort spoiled by hurrying 
 her on. Sir Harry, indeed, was neutral, but Mansell and her brother 
 were evidently molested by the rencontre, and wished to elude it. 
 
 For Mansell I did not care, but not so with Foljambe, whose 
 marked and studious coldness could not be mistaken, and filled me 
 with resentment as well as grief. He stalked away, almost forcing 
 his sister with him into the grounds of the palace, whose gates 
 opened wide to receive them, but closed swiftly and suddenly on 
 me, as if unworthy their company. 
 
 This maddened me, and I returned to the city, bitterly brooding 
 over the truths impressed upon me so forcibly by my prophetic 
 tutor, on the miseries of unequal friendships. "The deep waters of 
 the proud," said I, as I walked on, " have gone over my soul ; my 
 soul is filled with the scornful reproof of the wealthy, and with the 
 deceitfulness of Ihe proud." 
 
 In this temper, for the twentieth time, I resolved (never again to 
 be bent from it) to give up the whole affair, and banish Bertha, and 
 certainly her brother, from my memory for ever. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MAKE VERSES BY THE SIDE OF A BROOK.— 'HOW THEIR CONSEQUENCES AFFECT MY 
 SITUATION WITH BERTHA, AND PRODUCE INCREASED INTIMACY WITH MR. GRANVILLE. 
 
 Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sua 
 Peered forth the golden window of the east, 
 A troubled mind drove me to walk abroad, 
 Where, underneath the grove of sycamore, 
 So early walking did I see your son. 
 Tow'rds him I made, but he was 'ware of me, 
 And stole into the covert of the wood. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 How well I pursued the resolutions I formed, shall now be dis- 
 closed. The contending feelings I had undergone left me neither 
 inclination nor power to enter into either the business or amuse- 
 ments of the place. My father's occupation at the castle gave me 
 the full disposal of myself, and, like the wise person I was, 1 dis- 
 posed of myself in just the most imprudent manner I could, for I 
 sought my recovery in solitude. 
 
 About a mile from York there is a romantic dell, through which 
 a transparent brook runs gurgling and bubbling, delighting the ear 
 with its music and the eye with its sparkle— both so soothing, be- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 121 
 
 cause so gentle. I had discovered it by chance in roaming through 
 the suburbs, it being in fact much hid by its mounds, though tri- 
 butary to the Ouse. It wound, now softly and slow, now rattling 
 and rapid, between two willowy sides, along one of which was a 
 pleasant path, which, from its being circuitous from the city, was 
 little frequented. To me, this only added to its charms, for here I 
 could muse on whatever subject " till fancy had her fill and here 
 I did muse on that subject which was always uppermost in my heart. 
 
 But even without this, there is something in a brook which always 
 lays hold of the mind, quietly indeed, and almost imperceptibly, 
 but with an increasing and lasting attraction which scenes more 
 tumultuous do not possess. Whatever your humour, a brook admi- 
 nisters to it. It adapts itself to every sense, it soothes, it exhilarates 5 
 it moans, it laughs 5 it sighs, it sings 5 it is silent, it babbles 5 it loi- 
 ters, it rushes 5 it is darksome, it is brilliant 5 it stands still, it leaps 
 forward; it is all melancholy, all gay. Then again, it has a fresh- 
 ness which nothing else can confer, no art imitate, or luxury reach : 
 it gives coolness to the feeling, and sweetness to the taste. But its 
 moral effects are still more pleasing. It dispels gloom and languor 5 
 promotes benevolence and gratitude 5 sympathizes with the low in 
 spirit, and will not suffer the proud to set up their horn. It has vi- 
 vacity for the young, tranquillity for the old ; it promotes a love for 
 elegant nature, and a taste for elegant poetry : above all, it is so 
 hallowed and peaceful, that it will suffer no guilty or tumultuous 
 thought to pollute its vicinage, but diffuses holiness, innocence, and 
 cheerful virtue over everything around. He who possesses such a 
 brook may almost laugh at the world. 
 
 What a fortune was this retreat to any contemplative man — par- 
 ticularly a contemplative lover. But its effect upon me, after a very 
 short acquaintance with it, was anything but what I intended — that 
 is, in the leisure it afforded to fortify me in my resolution to forget 
 Bertha. For two days the early morning always found me there, 
 and I could scarce leave it in the late evening 5 for every murmur of 
 the water-^-every flower on its margin— and, above all, the sweet 
 freshness of its banks, spoke, looked, and breathed of nothing but 
 Bertha. 
 
 Had I been wise I should never have visited this spot twice. But 
 I was a fool — that is to say, romantic — if romance, which so be- 
 guiles us into happiness, is folly. For a few yards the path was 
 beautifully ornamented with an avenue of sycamores, which, from 
 the busy scenes in the city, was now wholly deserted. It suited better 
 on that account with my humour, and was perhaps the principal 
 attraction of the place. At the foot of one of these sycamores (um- 
 bratilis arbos) I laid me down, 
 
 " Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy, 
 To meditate my rural minstrelsy," 
 
122 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 of which take the fruits, gentle reader, if oniy because they so in- 
 contestably prove the advance I had made in my cure. 
 
 THE LOVER'S HOPE. 
 
 Ah ! why repress the bursting sigh, 
 
 Or why the starting tear restrain ? 
 The bliss of sensibility 
 
 Doth richly over-pay the pain. 
 
 Then feed on thoughts, my soul, that move 
 
 The purest, tenderest desire ; 
 Live on your hope, nor cease to love, 
 
 Nor fear to fan the generous fire. 
 
 Those speaking eyes, sweet girl, 'tis true, 
 
 On me with love were never turn'd ; 
 But hate, if hate can dwell in you, 
 
 In you I never yet discern 'd. 
 
 That dimpled cheek, which lightly glows, 
 
 Ne'er glow'd with love for me, I own ; 
 Rut on those downy arched brows 
 
 I never yet observed a frown. 
 
 Perhaps those eyes may one day turn 
 
 On me, and with soft favour shine; 
 Perhaps that cheek may one day burn 
 
 With the same fire that flushes mine. 
 
 Then feed on thoughts, my soul, that move 
 
 The purest, tenderest desire ; 
 Live on your hope, nor cease to love, 
 
 Nor fear to fan the generous fire. 
 
 Having finished this effusion, I relumed with it to my lodgings, 
 far more satisfied, I fear, than if it had been the most profound stoi- 
 cal treatise de contemptu amoris. Here I spread it on my table, in 
 order to give it a last polish, and here I left it, on being called away 
 to speak to my father in the Castle-yard, saying I would return in 
 ten minutes. What was my surprise, on my return, to find my 
 room, and my verses too, in possession of Mr. Granville, whose 
 genius for musical composition, and feeling for love-poetry and 
 Petrarch, I have already mentioned. 
 
 From his known reputation and connection with York, Mr. Gran- 
 ville had been invited from Oxford to join the amateur concerts to 
 be given during the assize week ; and, as his musical compositions 
 had always been admired, had been earnestly requested to favour 
 the undertaking by bringing some of them with him. I have said 
 he was kindly disposed towards me, and, hearing I was at York, 
 had come to visit me, when, finding I was expected every minute, 
 he had waited my return. 
 
 He was a little confused at being found with my manuscript in 
 his hand, which he confessed he had read, upon seeing it open for 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 125 
 
 anybody's perusal ; adding, however, by way of additional claim 
 for pardon, that even if he thought he had been doing wrong, he 
 was afraid he could not have desisted, the sentiments being, as he 
 was pleased to say, so much in the very spirit of true and gene- 
 rous love. 
 
 " If these verses are yours," said he, " I can only say, I congra- 
 tulate and envy you too." 
 
 This from a man, himself so distinguished for his own poetry and 
 musical powers, must have insured his pardon, had the fault not 
 been my own for so carelessly leaving myself open to be read by 
 any straggler in the hotel. 
 
 " But do you know," said he, " that your pardon will not con- 
 tent me? The verses are so affecting, that they would admirably set 
 off affecting music, and I have recently indulged myself in an ama- 
 tory composition, to suit which I have in vain looked for words. 
 Will you give these to me — that is, allow me to adapt them to the 
 air I have composed? If your mistress is like Cowley's, ideal, and 
 merely a theme to exercise your taste for poetry ( for I apprehend 
 you are too young for this to be more than imaginary), no harm 
 can be done, and you will essentially oblige me." 
 
 He then proceeded again to commend the stanzas. 
 
 What shall I say ? The thought of appearing in public as an au- 
 thor astonished, nay frightened me : but he answered this by saying 
 the author would not be known. 
 
 Then, if Bertha should ever discover that she was the subject ! 
 But that could hardly be, if even the author were known 5 and if 
 even she applied them (which was scarcely possible), there might 
 perhaps be a melancholy pleasure in thinking that my hopeless pas- 
 sion was not buried in obscurity y and as / meant never to see her 
 again, why the thing would be indifferent. Was I quite sure that 
 it would be so? that I should not be even pleased that she should 
 know how much and with what constancy I had loved her, though 
 all in secrecy, silence, and despair? Were I dying, I thought it 
 might do me good to think she should not be ignorant of this. 
 
 Well ! after a variety of arguments urged and answered on both 
 sides, Mr. Granville and flattery prevailed 5 and leaving him to his 
 own impression, that the passion described was imaginary, I al- 
 lowed him to copy the verses, with which he walked off. 
 
 That very day the manuscript composition was announced for the 
 next morning's concert, at which, of course, the whole Hastings 
 parly would attend ! How can I describe the interest of that moment ! 
 
124 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 I am advised to give her music o'mornings ; 
 They say it will penetrate. 
 
 Cymf.eline. 
 
 1 was early in the concert-room, and soon saw the entry of thoscs 
 who alone gave it a charm in my eyes. 
 
 From I know not what cause, Charles was not among them, which 
 did not displease me; but Mr. Hastings escorted his daughter and 
 sister, the sheriff's lady, with a daughter, Miss Lucinda Mansell, a 
 pleasing girl, and her odious brother. 
 
 Berlha was arrayed in all her loveliness of person and elegance of 
 attire, combining the dignity of a queen with the grace of a nymph ; 
 in short, with all that distinction, yet suavity of manner, which 
 attracted the regard and attention of every one, from the highest to 
 the lowest. Accordingly, she was surrounded in a moment by the 
 elite of the gentry at York ; while I, a* a distance, was more than 
 ever shrunk in my own littleness, and more than ever impressed 
 with my own temerity. 
 
 However, the commencement of the concert dissipated these 
 reflections, and left me eager for the performance of the important 
 strain ; an eagerness which, from the reputation of Mr. Granville, 
 who was known to have composed the music, and was otherwise so 
 well known at York, seemed to be shared by the audience. 
 
 It met with complete success. The melody was so beautiful, that 
 it would have insured favour to any words ; but the words themselves 
 had also a share of praise. This I found from the remarks of many 
 to whom I sat near, particularly of some young females of pre- 
 possessing appearance 5 though it was chiefly valuable to me for the 
 hope this caused that Bertha might be of the same opinion. From 
 what Ihey said they plainly thought that Mr. Granville was the 
 author of the stanzas as well as the music. " What a delightful man 
 that Mr. Granville must be! 1 ' said these young ladies. 
 
 Can I deny my pleasure? But, safely can I say, that it was only 
 or chiefly because it shewed it possible that another might think so 
 too, and the verses be approved by her as well as by these strangers. 
 This I thought not unlikely; for the enviable Granville, enrolled in 
 the Hastings' party, was sealed next to his lovely relation, who, to 
 the annoyance of her other cousin, Mansell, who sat on the other 
 side, gave him all her attention. Nay, it was obvious, for I could 
 see it from my station, that she was complimenting him upon Ihc 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 125 
 
 melody, and perhaps upon Ihe words, thinking Ihem iiis \ for he 
 replied to her animated address with a succession of bows, but also 
 with shakes of the head; the one evidently from acquiescence, the 
 other as evidently from disclaimer. 
 
 All this was confirmed to me afterwards by himself, and, on 
 leaving the room, I had the delight not only of receiving an an- 
 gelic look of kindness from Bertha as she passed, but a direct ap- 
 peal to my opinion, whether the thought in the new stanzas were 
 not charming? Moreover, this was crowned by an observation, 
 that I had not called again upon her father. 
 
 I went home, plunged in a sea of delight, and could not sleep 
 that night for joy. 
 
 The next day, Mr. Granville called again, and gladdened me by 
 reporting what many, but particularly Bertha, thought of the stan- 
 zas. They were pathetic, generous, she said, delicate, and full of 
 devotion, which could scarcely fail, she thought, to win the object 
 of them. 
 
 What an agitating recital for me ! Granville knew not the flame 
 he was fanning, or the firmness he was undermining in relating 
 this. " Let me tell you, however," said he, " that my honesty un- 
 derwent no slight trial with my delightful kinswoman, who would 
 have it, spile of my asseverations to the contrary, that I was the 
 author and concluded, playfully (you know how frank she is), that 
 she was glad that the verses were not made upon her, for she should 
 be in danger." 
 
 My cheek became instantly all fire at this account, which luckily 
 Mr. Granville, having moved to the window to look at a passing 
 carriage, did not perceive • but I was in still greater danger when 
 he added, " By the way, Miss Hastings thought you very un gallant 
 yesterday, considering how inlimate you had formerly been at Fol- 
 jambe Park, and wondered at your keeping so aloof in the same 
 room, but supposed you had grown fine at Oxford. She owned, 
 however, you were the cleverest man in the world at saving a lady 
 from a fall in a ball-room." 
 
 Granville having thus unconsciously set fire to a train, the mis- 
 chief or extent of which he could not foresee, left me in a sort of 
 trance, from which for very many minutes I did not recover. 
 
 When I awoke, it is astonishing what a confusion I felt in my 
 brain. Surprise, pleasure, uncertainty, hope, timidity, doubt, fluc- 
 tuation, resolution — in short, like the booby Silvius 1 (who seems 
 no booby either as to his own case), I was " all made of passion, 
 wishes, adoration, duty, observance, humbleness, patience, and 
 impatience." 
 
 My thoughts of flight were alternately renewed and suspended, 
 
 1 As You Like It, 
 
216 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 The lover, as well as the drowning man, catches at a straw. From 
 Granville's account it was plain I had a portion of— I was going to 
 say her favour— but no ! even the Lover's Hope could not fabri- 
 cate that — so I contented myself with calling it good-will 5 and did 
 not her cheerful, kind nature bestow good-will on every one, even 
 Mansell ? 
 
 But then, what could I expect by remaining? To be looked 
 down upon ! to be told to keep my distance ! not by her, but by her 
 brother, perhaps her father! Forbid it pride! Forbid it prudence I 
 Forbid it the noble name of Clifford, however decayed! 
 
 Yet to fly, to lose all mastery over myself! to live a coward 
 in my own esteem! a slave! an exile! forbid it the same pride 
 and noble name! forbid it everything that was manly, firm, or 
 independent ! 
 
 Unable to decide, or even to think 5 unnerved by Granville's in- 
 formation, though only of a very common-place matter, meaning 
 at best little, perhaps nothing, — I again sought my dear brook, sure, 
 at least, of there finding solitude and leisure for my deliberations. 
 
 But I was disappointed ; it was solitude no longer. And how was 
 it broken in upon ? The romantic Granville had found it out as well 
 as myself, though he had not, like myself, wooed it for the sake of 
 retirement. In fact, upon his discovering its pleasantness, he had 
 templed the very persons I was striving to avoid to recreate them- 
 selves in its shade and seclusion, while their more busy relatives, 
 the sheriff and Mr. Hastings, were moiling in the service of their 
 country, in a hot court of justice. Accordingly, he had persuaded 
 Bertha, chaperoned by her aunt, Mrs. Mansell, and accompanied 
 by both her cousins, to pass half an hour in that cool retreat. 
 
 What a rencontre was here ! No escaping if I would ! Unwill- 
 ing if I could. 
 
 Bertha, in a simple flowered gown, and that most becoming of 
 all the parts of female attire, a walking bonnet, was more attracting 
 than ever, because more like one of my own degree. This perhaps 
 I could have withstood 5 but her pleased look, and the manner in 
 which she ejaculated, as if they had escaped unintentionally, the 
 words, "0! Mr. De Clifford, this is quite unexpected, and very 
 apropos" — put all thought but of unmixed devotion to flight. 
 
 She soon explained what her exclamation meant, by saying, 
 " Do you know there has been a great dispute between my aunt 
 and cousin, Mrs. and Miss Mansell, and Mr. Granville, on the ef- 
 fect which his stanzas (for we all say they are his), which so pleased 
 us yesterday, might, or ought to have on the lady addressed; and, 
 to be sure, there never was such an appropriate place for such a 
 discussion as this. It is a poem itself, and if I were to stay here. I 
 think I could make verses too." 
 
 My suspicions were all up in arms at this speech, for the place, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 127 
 
 as I have said, had generated the verses in question but two days 
 before. 
 
 " But first," continued Bertha, " let me introduce you to my 
 aunt, Mrs. Mansell, and my cousin, Lucinda, and then they will go 
 on with their argument with Mr. Granville." 
 
 So saying, and the introduction having passed, Granville, who 
 quite laughed at the interest which the ladies seemed to take in it, 
 returned to the subject. " Mrs. Mansell and her daughter, my 
 cousin there," said he, " have the cruelly and injustice to say that 
 the man who could secretly nurse his love, without encouragement 
 or hope, must be a very simple or poor-spirited wretch, not worth 
 thinking about. I, on the contrary, applaud and like him for his 
 modesty, and think that to have loved in secret, and persevered at 
 humble distance, with no other ground for his hope than his wishes * 
 denotes both a stronger and a purer devotion. Anybody can love 
 whose love is returned ; but his must be attachment indeed, who, 
 like Petrarch, can cherish it without even declaring it, much less 
 knowing whether, if declared, it would ever be accepted. What 
 say you?" 
 
 " May I ask," said I, with some hesitation, " which side Miss 
 Hastings has taken ? " 
 
 4 'Perhaps she will tell jo^" cried Granville, rather mischievously, 
 "but neither I nor these ladies can get her to declare her opinion, 
 which she pretends to be on account of her inexperience, and the 
 difficulty and delicacy of the question 5 and yet in a month more 
 she will be seventeen, and is to come out." 
 
 " If I were to be twenty," observed Bertha, " I ought rather to 
 be a listener than an arguer upon such a subject." 
 
 " Your modesty ought not to let you off," said Granville, " par- 
 ticularly as it is a question for the ladies alone to decide. The men 
 can know nothing of it. Indeed, for that we have our cousin Man- 
 selFs authority there (pointing to him), who says he knows nothing 
 about the matter." 
 
 "And I don't wish to know," said Mansell, gruffly; " nay, I 
 think the whole thing stuff and nonsense." 
 
 "There I believe you," observed Bertha; "but I do also wish that 
 I knew the author of the stanzas, and that we had him here 5 he 
 would at least tell us what he meant himself, and whether, as Lu- 
 cinda says, the supposition of mere gratuitous hope is impossible 
 because unnatural. But I still think that Mr. Granville, who we all 
 know is so romantic, is the author himself, though he tells us he 
 got the lines from a friend. Who is that friend ? Do we know him ?" 
 
 Granville laughed, and answered, "What if I were to say you do?" 
 
 Luckily he did not look at me, but without that I felt all over in 
 consternation. I was hot and cold, and ready to run off, but was 
 saved by the persuasion of Bertha, and indeed of all present, that 
 
128 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 Granville was the author, notwithstanding his disavowal; so that 
 they did not observe my emotion. 
 
 14 Ah ! " said Miss Hastings, " it is mere affectation in you, cou- 
 sin Granville, and not like a friend and relation, to deny it so un- 
 candidly 5 and I dare say your friend, Mr. De Clifford, thinks 
 so too." 
 
 ^ 4 Ask him," said Granville roguishly, 44 what he thinks was the 
 
 author's own opinion upon the question — for he knows him too 
 
 indeed, they are sworn friends, and it was through him that I pro- 
 cured the stanzas." 
 
 He uttered this, as I said, roguishly, and, not knowing where 
 he would stop, I again began to be alarmed. 
 
 Bertha seemed surprised, and looked doublingly at me, when 
 Mrs. Mansell said, 44 Perhaps, as Mr. De Clifford is a friend of the 
 author, he may think as he does 5 and if he will not inform us who 
 he is, he may, at least, tell us what was his real opinion." 
 
 Granville smiled again. I was more and more embarrassed, but 
 thought I could best recover myself by adopting the character as- 
 signed me. 
 
 44 Certainly," said I, " I know the author, and think with him 
 on most points, but particularly on this." 
 
 44 And your common opinion," said Mrs. Mansell, 44 is " 
 
 44 That hope is so buoyant, that nothing can make it sink, par- 
 ticularly the 4 Lover's Hope,' on which these stanzas turn 5 for if 
 real love amounts, as it is said it does, to adoration, I can fancy 
 love even without hope, so delicious in itself, that I could feed upon 
 il and be happy, though banished for ever from the admired object." 
 
 Here I observed with interest that Bertha seemed most attentive. 
 
 64 What ! " cried Mrs. Mansell, 44 though your mistress frowned 
 upon you? " 
 
 44 That I do not say," replied I, 44 nor, as you will observe, does 
 the author himself 5 for he asserts, in terms, that though the check 
 of his sovereign lady never glowed with love for him, yet, 
 
 4 Upon her downy arched brows 
 He never yet observed a frown.' " 
 
 fc4 True," said Miss Mansell; 44 but that is not hope." 
 
 44 Well then, even without hope," returned I, 44 I have a fancy 
 lhat a man could be happy in feeding upon his love — thai is, upon 
 the attractions of his mistress's beauty, manners, and character, 
 though he knew he had no chance of obtaining her. 1 ' 
 
 44 Indeed ! " cried all the ladies. 
 
 44 Yes $ for I can fancy, nay, feel sure, that a man who doats to 
 almost madness, but, like a subject in love with his queen, must 
 feel himself hopeless, may still delight to nurse his passion, and 
 would not exchange it for success elsewhere." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 129 
 
 " This, indeed, is romantic, and at least, I should think, not very 
 common," said Bertha. 
 
 H You think then with us, my dear," observed her aunt. 
 
 " Tis a thing I do not venture to think of at all," replied Bertha, 
 whose young mind seemed afraid of advancing too far. " I must 
 live long before I can be called upon to judge even of the possibility 
 of the thing j but if possible " 
 
 " What then ? " asked her aunt. 
 
 " Why I should thinksuch constancy, under such discouragement, 
 would not, as it ought not, be thrown away." 
 
 " Ought not?" asked Miss Mansell. "Could you, much more 
 ought you, to love for mere constancy's sake, where you otherwise 
 could not be inclined to do so? " 
 
 " I know not/' answered her cousin 5 " but this I know, that 
 kindness will always produce kindness in return 5 and if we love a 
 dog or a bird because it is attached to us, much more ought we a 
 human creature like ourselves." 
 
 f But how, where there is no kindness evident," said Mrs. Man- 
 sell, " Mr. De Clifford's supposition can be realized, and love per- 
 sisted in, without its being even known, is what I cannot imagine 
 to be possible." 
 
 " And yet," observed I, " ask the thousands who have gone mad 
 for love, what hopes occasioned their feelings ? They cannot answer. 
 Or take my former supposition of a young and lovely queen, who 
 enchants the air you breathe with her presence, or makes it hap- 
 piness enough for you to kiss the ground she treads on. Is it hope 
 that causes you to do this? No ; rather, I should say, with a most 
 genuine, and yet most despairing lover, 
 
 * Thus, Indian like, 
 Religious in mine error, I adore 
 The sun that looks upon his worshipper, 
 But knows of him no more.' " 
 
 " What charming language ! " cried Bertha, and she became 
 very pensive, as if pondering the passage. 
 
 u Upon my word," observed Mrs. Mansell, taking up the dis- 
 course, " we may talk of our cousin Granville's romance, but Mr. 
 De Clifford beats him all to nothing. I only hope, for his own sake, 
 this is what he has called it, his fancy, not his experience." 
 
 " What does cousin Mansell think of it ? " said Granville again, 
 and dryly turning to him. 
 
 " As I hope to be saved," replied the young gentleman, switch 
 ing his boots, " I know nothing at all about the matter, except 
 that you are all a set of confounded bores, and a confounded deal 
 too romantic for me, so I shall hop off. Mother, I shall meet you 
 at dinner." 
 
 I. 9 
 
130 DJi! CLIFFORD , 
 
 So saying, this illustrious heir apparent literaliy effected what 
 he announced, and hopped off from the walk. 
 
 There was a pause of some minutes, and I began to wonder at 
 my own courage in venturing what I had said, when Bertha, after 
 ruminating some time, said, " Pray, Mr. De Clifford, where is that 
 beautiful passage — the most beautiful and expressive, I think I ever 
 heard — which you quoted just now? He must, indeed, have been 
 a lover who uttered it." 
 
 " The he was a she," observed Granville. 
 
 " But where to be found? " 
 
 " In Shakspeare," returned I. " It was the lament of poor He- 
 lena, who had fixed her affections on one too much above her even 
 to imagine, much less expect, success. Yet she fed upon her love 
 in secret, and, though hopeless, would not part with it." 
 
 " And who was this superior lord, who was so unwittingly adored 
 by her?" 
 
 " The Count of Roussillon," said I. " The secret was discovered 
 by his mother, the benefactress of Helena, who loved her like her 
 own child. The disclosure is almost still more beautiful than the 
 passage you admire." 
 
 " I never read the play," said Bertha. 
 
 " Perhaps it is as well you should not," observed Granville ; " but 
 what Clifford says is true ; the account of her love is pathetic, and 
 its disclosure moving." 
 
 "Cannotyou two gentlemen between you," asked Lucinda, " re- 
 peat it 5 especially as you tell us we may as well not read the play 
 ourselves?" 
 
 " The task is beyond my memory," replied Granville. 
 
 " And would be beyond mine," said I, seeing all the ladies turned 
 to me, " but that I was always so struck with the scene, and en- 
 tered so thoroughly into the feelings of Helena, that I never forgot 
 it : fori thought those feelings might be man's as well as a woman's, 
 and I, possibly, some time or other, that man ; and then I might 
 feel all the bitterness of her pathetic exclamation, 
 
 • l am from humble, he from honour'd name; 
 No note upon my parents, his all noble.' " 
 
 I thought Bertha seemed struck with this, for she lost her smile, 
 and looked pensively on the ground 5 but Miss Mansell said with 
 liveliness,, "Then you can repeat Helena's confession, and will, I 
 hope, favour us." 
 
 " If you command me, certainly," returned I. "The speech is 
 to the Count of Roussillon's mother, 
 
 5 Then, I confess, 
 Here on my knee, before high heav'n and you, 
 That before you, and next unto high heav'n, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 13! 
 
 I love your son. 
 
 My friends were poor, but honest : 
 Be not offended ; for it hurts not him 
 That he is loved of me : I follow him not 
 By any token of presumptuous suit, 
 Nor would I have him till I do deserve him, 
 Yet never know how that desert should be. 
 / know I love in vain, strive against hope. 
 
 \ Thus, Indian like, 
 Religious in mine error, I adore 
 The sun that looks upon his worshipper, 
 And knows of him no more.' " 
 
 During this recital I observed Bertha's eyes were fixed upon the 
 ground, and she scarcely breathed, as if she feared losing a word 5 
 and, whether the feeling, now deeper than ever, that this was my own 
 case, gave any peculiarity to my manner (I certainly never felt so 
 much affected by the lines) ; or whether their own impressed the 
 listeners as it did, they all seemed pathos moved. 
 
 Granville's natural sensibility showed he was much affected 5 but 
 I wished to penetrate, if I could, how the passage had wrought upon 
 her whose impression was alone of consequence to me. She said 
 little, but was peculiarly thoughtful, till her eyes glistened with 
 feeling. Mrs. Mansell, however, from her age, less affected, and 
 inclined perhaps to banter, observed, 
 
 " So, then, Mr. De Clifford, you feared the poor lady's case 
 might be your own. As I know the play, and that she in the end 
 succeeded, I give you all my good wishes for the same termination. 1 
 
 Bertha seemed struck, though she spoke not a word, but from 
 that time was wrapt in her own reflections. Indeed the whole 
 party, from I know not what cause, appeared after this to prefer 
 silence to conversation, till I took my leave, when Mrs. Mansell, by 
 way of a parting remark, said, 
 
 " Mr. l)e Clifford, you must allow us to thank you for more than 
 your Shakspeare, for I think you have pretty well told us who was 
 the author of the slanzas we have so much admired." 
 
 I was startled, and her daughter laughed en espiegle, which 
 seemed rather her nature. Bertha, still grave, only said, when I 
 wished her good morning, ' ' We have indeed had a charming walk f: 
 and, reminding me of our readings together at Foljambe, she ob- 
 served, "you have made me love Shakspeare better than ever-," 
 words which, though they long tingled in my ears, did not, I fear, 
 in the end do me good. 
 
 Granville, whose good-will seemed to increase, on my leaving 
 him with the ladies, begged I would breakfast with him the next 
 day, the last of the assizes, when he was to return to Oxford. 
 
132 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Granville's advice to me to forget bertha, which i promise to follow. 
 
 Be ruled by me : forget to think of her. 
 
 O ! teach me how I should forget to think. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 Proud as I was of my brook, I found that it had not repaid my 
 fondness well \ for, on my return to the hotel to prepare for leaving 
 York, I felt an unusual heaviness on my mind. It seemed to me 
 that I had passed, in the walk I had left, the sweetest moments I 
 had ever known, only to lose them for ever. Yet there was some- 
 thing in the sweetness which I would not have exchanged, to be 
 released from all the bitterness I underwent. I felt like the great 
 Ormond, when, though worn with grief for the loss of the gallant 
 Ossory, he exclaimed with exultation, he would not exchange his 
 dead son for any living son in Christendom. So I, though my re- 
 verence for Bertha had been enhanced a hundred-fold, and the 
 thought of parting from her, perhaps for ever, was almost insup- 
 portable, yet this farther advance to intimacy with her engaging 
 character brought along with it a delight, which more than balanced 
 the grief of losing her. I thought of my own couplet— 
 
 " The bliss of sensibility 
 Doth richly overpay the pain." 
 
 In the evening there was another ball, which it cost me fifty 
 changes of resolution before I could decide to attend it or not. As it 
 was, I came to a sort of compromise. I would not enter the room, 
 but determined to see what passed in it, without being seen, and I 
 actually disguised myself in the great coat of the landlord of the 
 inn, and look my stand among those of the servants who were al- 
 lowed to wait at the door, just within the room. 
 
 My design was at least fulfilled ; for though I could not see far 
 into the gay throng, I occasionally discovered the only thing I 
 sought for— the movements of her who now so entirely absorbed 
 me. Strange to say, though she again danced with Sir Harry Mel- 
 ford, and could not fail of dancing with her usual elegance, it was 
 not with her usual spirit 5 and when she reached the bottom of the 
 dance, close to the entrance where I was standing, she begged to 
 sit down, to which, with proper politeness, her partner agreed. 
 Yet there seemed a constraint in the manner of each towards the 
 other, which surprised me. 
 
 What a situation for a lover, to be standing unknown within ear- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 133 
 
 shot (for Ihere was but one person between us), of my mistress and 
 my rival 5 for rival Sir Harry to my fears evidently appeared. Nor, 
 had I been even his equal, or superior, was he to be slighted. He 
 was a man of uncommon elegance and manliness of manner, at the 
 same time marked with those soft yet frank attentions which always 
 engage so much of a woman's attention in return. The constraint, 
 therefore, which I observed in both, seemed to me to proceed either 
 from something very critical that had passed, or was expected to 
 pass, between them. She complained of head-ache and fatigue, and 
 he lamented it, of course 5 bufeach seemed rather absent, till he 
 imputed it to a long walk which he said he understood she had taken 
 that morning. This she assured him, in a more collected tone, 
 could not possibly have done her harm, but rather good, for it had 
 been remarkably agreeable • and then she asked if he had ever seen 
 the brook, which she thought the prettiest thing about York. 
 
 " I should have been fortunate," said Sir Harry (as I thought, 
 with something like coldness), " if I had been allowed to have been 
 one of your party, by being informed of your intention. I am told 
 too you had a very animated discourse on a most interesting subject." 
 
 " He who told it you," replied Bertha, " who I suppose was my 
 cousin, I believe could give very little account of it, for he owned 
 he did not understand it himself, and I most thoroughly believed him." 
 
 " You had your brother's Oxford acquaintance with you, I hear," • 
 said Sir Harry. 
 
 " My brother's friend and schoolfellow," replied Miss Hastings. 
 " A great enthusiast, is he not ?" 
 
 " A man of feeling, certainly,, and seemingly of genius, or he 
 would not be such a friend of Mr. Granville." 
 
 " Granville patronizes him, I believe, at Oxford." 
 
 "I do not think that is a word to apply to Mr. De Clifford," 
 replied Bertha; "he is at least a gentleman, and of very ancient 
 birth." 
 
 Sir Harry looked grave, and replied, " He is at least fortunate 
 in having your good word, Miss Hastings." 
 
 "That will be of little advantage to him," answered she, in 
 rather a hurried lone. "But I feel quite recovered, and if you 
 please we will stand up." 
 
 Sir Harry bowed, and observed, before they moved away, 
 
 6k Be assured, Miss Hastings, I meant to do any thing but 
 disparage Mr. De Clifford, whose birth and talents I am aware of, 
 as well as the inequality of his fortune to the former prosperity of 
 his family. I should be glad to make his acquaintance." 
 
 " It would not disgrace you," said Bertha ; and they rejoined the 
 dancers. 
 
 Indefinite, slight, and transitory as this was in itself, to me it 
 was ail interesting, and gave me subject for rumination the whole 
 
134 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 night. Having followed, therefore, the speakers with my eye till 
 I lost them in the crowd, and there seemed no chance of seeing 
 them again, I resolved to retire, which I did, full of a thousand 
 vague and indeterminate thoughts. For though to the conversation 
 I had heard nothing important seemed to attach, to me it was 
 attended with an indescribable effect. I turned it every possible 
 way, I ran over it twenty times in the night, and it was, on the 
 whole, pleasing, though I could not exactly tell why. All that I 
 knew was, that though I feared Sir Harry, I could not help respect- 
 ing him, and that to Bertha I felt bound more than ever. 
 
 The next morning opened very different matters. True to my 
 breakfast appointment with Granville, I hoped to hear much from 
 him, though I knew not what; for, as I had seen him with the 
 party the preceding evening, I was sure every thing would be inte- 
 resting that he had to tell. 
 
 He began by rallying me on the impression which what he called 
 my spouting had made the day before, on the ladies in the walk. 
 My heart immediately beat high, and I panted to hear something 
 of Bertha. Alas! it sunk into very ordinary beating when he could 
 only cite Mrs. Mansell and her daughter as having made any 
 remark. 
 
 44 Yet," said I, 44 Miss Hastings seemed quite as much impressed." 
 • 44 O! yes, no doubt of it, only she did not happen to mention it 
 as the others did." 
 My hope immediately fell. 
 
 44 Except, indeed," added he, 44 to join with them in feeling sure 
 you were the author of the lines." 
 
 44 Well, I care not," said I; 44 the mistress addressed was, as you 
 say, merely ideal." 
 
 44 So I told them," said Granville. 
 
 44 And how came you," cried I, 44 to tell them what you certainly 
 did not know?" 
 
 44 Beg pardon," said he, 44 1 did not think it was of any conse- 
 quence 5 but 1 will certainly rectify the mistake by telling them that, 
 though without hope, you are really and desperately in love." 
 
 44 Not for the world, " I exclaimed. 
 
 44 Some Oxford queen, perhaps," said he. 
 
 44 Nothing so little likely ; besides, I only wrote the lines three 
 days ago, on the side of the brook." 
 
 44 O! I understand you," said he; 44 it is a York mistress, then, 
 or a mistress at York, that inspired you," and he looked very signi- 
 ficantly. 44 But our tea and toast are getting cold.' 1 
 
 Now these few words had deprived me of all appetite. I feared 
 my secret was discovered, and could not eat a bit. He perceived it, 
 for his observation in these matters was keen, and his own roman- 
 tic disposition made him alive to mine. As he realty, therefore, fell 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 135 
 
 an interest about me, he would not let the subject drop, but rushed, 
 indeed, at once to the point. 
 
 "My dear Hugh," said he (for so he had used to call me at 
 Oxford), " I wanted not this eagerness of yours to discover what 
 you are ill able to conceal—that you are caught by the sweet 
 beauty, and sweeter character, of my pretty kinswoman, and that 
 your stanzas, and the romantic devotion of hopeless love which you 
 professed yesterday, all look their birth from her." 
 
 This sudden attack confounded*me, so that I had not a word to 
 reply, and I looked the disconcerted thing I fell. But I was still 
 more alarmed when he continued : — 
 
 " My real regard for you, added to what I think my knowledge 
 of what your heart, if seriously moved, will make you suffer, would 
 cause me to fear for this discovery, if I did not hope that it was the 
 mere fleeting admiration of an hour; such a one as I own I myself, 
 at your age, have felt without mischief, and such, I trust, it will 
 be with you." 
 
 "Supposing your surmise true," said I, not a little confused, 
 " may I ask your reason for your fear of the one, or your hope of 
 the other?" 
 
 "Simply because I think you much too good a fellow to en- 
 counter the certain shipwreck of your happiness, as well as of all 
 your prospects in life. This will indubitably attend your perse- 
 verance in an inclination (I will not yet call it a passion) which never 
 can succeed." 
 
 Observing I looked in consternation, perhaps annoyed, he went 
 on with increased earnestness, but also with an increased kindness 
 of tone : — 
 
 " If you think I am taking too great a liberty, I have done. If 
 you think me only a friend, anxious for your welfare, you will 
 open yourself freely to one who, though still young enough to know 
 what a warm-hearted youth can feel for such a creature as Bertha, 
 has ten years more of experience than you, and may therefore not 
 be despised." 
 
 " You think then," said I, in a tone less dogged than I was at 
 first inclined to be, "that Bertha might at least justify the passion 
 you suppose me to feel?" 
 
 " First tell me," returned he, "whether I am right. But, whether 
 right or wrong, I am free to say, that I think Bertha might justify 
 any Warmth of attachment which any person, prince or peasant, 
 might feel; and so, perhaps, Sir Harry Melford has for some time 
 thought." 
 
 My heart sickened at the intimation. Alas! thought I, they are 
 engaged. I gave a deep sigh, and mournfully said, " I at least un- 
 derstand and thank you now, for cautioning me so kindly. As a 
 
136 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 relation, they have confided to you that Sir Harry and Miss Hastings 
 are betrothed. Believe me, I am glad— very glad." 
 
 And so I was 5 for, heavy as it weighed upon me, a gleam of 
 common sense opening to my mind, I thought this the likeliest of 
 all things, by putting an end to all possibility of prospect, to put an 
 end to all my illusions. I was therefore almost sorry to be brought 
 back again into the region of doubt and doating, by Granville's 
 saying, " Sir Harry has attractions, and I wish, for his sake — in- 
 deed, for both your sakes — th*t your fears were founded. But 
 whatever his wishes, they are at least not yet accomplished 5 the 
 pretty Bertha says her hour is not come." 
 
 My heart danced at this, yet I was a fool for allowing it to do so 5 
 for what could it do, but plunge me deeper in uncertainty and 
 despair. 
 
 " Am I to understand, then," said I, " that Sir Harry has offered 
 and been refused?" 
 
 "Not refused; yet not accepted. In the first place, her only 
 feeling is that of surprise at any one thinking her ( being so young) 
 a subject for a proposal of marriage. She says, gaily and truly, 
 that at present she is married to papa. In the next place, a confes- 
 sion of his agreeableness ( as, indeed, is not to be wondered at, for 
 he really is a very agreeable fellow ), is all that she can feel for him 5 
 adding, with the playfulness of her age, that she has not yet had 
 dancing enough. In all this, she is supported by Mr. Hastings, 
 while Sir Harry is as strenuously backed by Foljambe, who, with 
 his usual vehemence, points out instances of brides of not merely 
 seventeen, but of one, and even two years younger. If Sir Harry, 
 therefore, pursues his suit, and when the lady has had dancing 
 enough, he possibly may succeed," 
 
 "Happy Sir Harry!" cried I- 5 " what is this but acceptance, 
 only made sweeter by 
 
 ' Sweet, reluctant, amorous delay?' " 
 
 "Sir Harry does not think so," said Granville, " nay, has crot- 
 chets of his own about love, and thinks a lady, who will not yield 
 at the first summons, must either be engaged, or can never feel 
 what alone will satisfy him. All this, however, I should not have 
 told you, but that you are concerned in the breach it is likely to 
 create between two persons who have hitherto loved one another as 
 a brother and sister ought, but seldom do." 
 
 "Good God! Foljambe! 
 
 " Yes ! he is furious, for lie has set his heart upon the match, 
 and quarrels bitterly with Bertha for not acceding • with her father, 
 for declaring that there shall be no compulsion ; and with Sir 
 Marry, for refusing to persevere, You know his vehemence; but 
 tliis alone is not what concerns you," 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 137 
 
 " What does?" asked I, with eagerness. 
 
 " This j and it is what made me counsel you as I did. Your atten- 
 tions, as Foljambe calls them, to his sister at the ball, where you 
 saved her from falling, filled him with jealousy and anger at the 
 time 5 and the denouement with Sir Harry occurring the very next 
 day, he is furious in the notion that she may give you a thought. He 
 accuses her to his father for having ever looked upon you with 
 even civility 5 and, having heard of what passed at the brook, and 
 all your romance there, though communicated by a fool, his rage 
 is at its height. He recollects, he says, loo great an intimacy at Fol- 
 jambe ; curses the hour when you were admitted there 5 and was 
 angry with me for giving you a good word. In short, his violence, 
 always in extremes, here knows no bounds. I am glad, therefore, 
 that you are leaving the town to-day, for, I would not have you 
 meet for the world." 
 
 All this was wormwood to me, and I was seriously grieved 5 yet, 
 for the life of me, could not help being anxious to know whether 
 there was any, or what, foundation for the supposition that such a 
 comparative outcast could have engaged any, the smallest portion 
 of Bertha's favour. Were I to have been banished, or to have 
 banished myself for ever, the thought of such a thing would have 
 been meat and drink to me for the rest of my life"-, but to ascertain 
 it, even if Granville knew it, was impossible, without exposing me 
 to the suspicion of a vanity too egregious to encourage. I would 
 have given more than I possessed to have asked the question, but 
 was ashamed, — when Granville himself explained all he knew in 
 finishing his narration. 
 
 It seems it was the sapient Mansell who had infused all this 
 jealousy into Foljambe, both in his remarks upon what passed in 
 the ball-room, and in observing in Bertha's presence, that she 
 seemed never so much at her ease with anybody as with me. To 
 this she made a memorable reply :• — 
 
 " Poor fellow !" said she ; " he had need for some one to seem 
 easy with him, where ottiers, after professing eternal friendship, 
 shew nothing but 
 
 ' Hard unkindness' altered eye.' " 
 
 tfi I cannot tell you," said Granville, " how I admired the deci- 
 sion arid self-possession in one so young, and usually so sportive, 
 with which she said this." 
 
 "0! my friend," cried I, " can you be surprised at me? is she 
 not an angel ?" 
 
 M Cease your rapture," answered he, looking more grave, " till 
 you have heard (he conclusion 5 for she added with dignity, ' I say 
 this to you, brother, who have no right to disdain, for no cause, 
 the man you once loved like an equal j and also to this officious 
 
138 DK CLIFFORD ; 
 
 gentleman ( meaning Mansell ), who pretends to report what he has 
 not mind enough to understand ; but if either of you suppose, from 
 what passed yesterday, or this vindication to-day, that Mr. De Clif- 
 ford has ever conceived what you do him the wrong to impute to 
 him, or that I think as I am impertinently supposed to do, the sup- 
 position is not only offensive and unjust, but slanderous. I desire, 
 therefore, to be no more affronted by such insinuations.' 
 
 "You see, 1 ' concluded Granville, 44 that the spirit of the family 
 is not confined to Foljambe. Her father, who was present, praised 
 her for this speech 5 Mansell crouched under it ; but Foljambe had 
 not the generosity to say he was sorry, or even satisfied. The feel- 
 ing of the whole family, however, including Bertha herself, being 
 thus made known to you, I do hope, my dear Hugh, that if only 
 for your own pride's sake, to say nothing of prudence and happi- 
 ness, you will drive this youthful ebullition from your heart; — a 
 thing which, whatever I may have once thought of the difficulty 
 of a conquest over love, is not so difficult as perhaps you imagine." 
 
 I cannot even now but feel the variety of contending emotions 
 which this narration created within me, and the struggle which 
 arose in my mind upon hearing it. My eyes grew dim — my head 
 dizzy — and sickness came over my heart. I could not speak, and 
 ceased almost to think. 
 
 Perceiving me pale, and, as he thought, fainting, the watchful 
 Granville exclaimed, 
 
 44 Gome 5 this must not be. I meant to rouse, not overthrow you. 
 But, young and sanguine as you are, you surely must be alive to 
 what both reason and pride demand of you. Even if Bertha were 
 favourable, you surely would not seek to ruin her with her family, 
 to say nothing of reducing her to beggary " 
 
 44 O! slop," cried I, — " stop the unnecessary admonition. Lov- 
 ing Bertha better than myself, you need not tax me with such 
 selfishness. Even could she think of me as she is accused of doing 
 by that proud and unfeeling brother, whom she so well corrected, 
 voluntarily and for ever could I forego tBe heaven it would be to 
 win her. But my task would then be easy and sweet, in the thought 
 that I possessed her favour, and sacrificed my own feelings to her 
 welfare. Here, however, she herself avows that such favour would 
 be slanderous. All, therefore, is dreary mortification, humiliation, 
 and self-blame, for aspirations mocked, and audacity punished. 
 Oh! who can bear the pangs of despised love?" 
 
 "You will have greater merit in the conquest of them," said 
 Granville. 44 Nor, as I have said, is it so difficult 5 only gird your- 
 self to the battle, and though the contest is severer than I thought 
 it would be, you will triumph like a brave boy. Meantime re- 
 collect that Bertha does any thing but despise, nay, evidently esteems 
 \ou 5 which is as much as she does by Sir Harry, though a favorite 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 139 
 
 of fortune, and supported by her family — you the reverse. Ought 
 not this to satisfy your pride? the wound of which, after all, forms 
 a very principal ingredient in the grief which affects a disappointed 
 lover — which, as you never were encouraged, nor even declared 
 yourself, you cannot be called. But, if necessary for your cure, I 
 could not give you a better history, either of the folly or the cure 
 of love, than my own." 
 
 "Pray," said I, " give it me." 
 
 "Willingly. Imprimis, the lady was an Oxford belle, the 
 daughter of the head of a house, and therefore, in (hat place, one 
 of the haute noblesse. It was my fortune to meet her every even- 
 ing in one or other of the walks, and it gave me such pleasure, 
 that at last it became necessary to my happiness for the night. Nay, 
 when every body was retiring to rest, I could never go to bed, 
 without watching, as ! sometimes did, for an hour together, till I 
 beheld the light of her bed-candle through the crevice of her 
 shutter; nor could I leave it, till the light disappeared (during 
 which imagination was briskly at work), and only then thinking 
 that all was over, and that she had sunk to her repose, could I re- 
 tire to mine. I think you will allow here was folly enough." 
 
 44 But did you never tell your love?" 
 
 "Never. Nay, for a long time I did not know her, yet haunted 
 her upon all occasions. As she was a great walker out, and passed 
 daily by my window, I was always seated till she appeared. I then 
 dogged her. If she went into a shop, I was sure to want something 
 in the same place : if I saw which way she walked, I took a round- 
 about path to meet her : if I did so, I was in glory * if she had 
 turned before I saw her, I was in despair. Meantime, I gave her 
 credit for every virtue and every accomplishment, and became sick 
 and hopeless, because unknown to her. I was at length introduced 
 — found her a fool — and was cured." 
 
 " How old were you?" asked I. 
 
 " Your age," said he. 
 
 I was silent for some time. At length, seeing he thought his case 
 unanswerable, I observed, 
 
 "Uertha, at least, is no fool, whatever your Chloe may* have 
 been ; and though all this may be true, and you may not have 
 invented it for my benefit, it does not apply. It was evident you 
 were not — you could not be in love, knowing so little of her." 
 
 44 Why not I," said he, 44 as well as Petrarch?" 
 
 44 True," replied 1 5 44 but your example is unfortunate again, 
 for Petrarch was not cured." 
 
 44 That," said he, 44 was probably because he never was intro- 
 duced to Laura.' 1 
 
 If I was to be lectured out of my feelings, and made a convert 
 to prudence from a destructive passion, I was fortunate in such a 
 
140 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 friend as Granville-, for from perhaps a soft nature, and certainly 
 from his own acquaintance with the waywardness of love, he was 
 better able to soothe and persuade me than the sterner mind of 
 Folhergill. With all my deference for my good tutor, I could not 
 help feeling the difference between them in this respect : for Gran- 
 ville, as I have said, was himself romantic — Fothergill, matter of 
 fact-, Granville had often deviated into the flowery paths of ima- 
 gination — Fothergill had never quitted the beaten track of sober life. 
 
 'Twas well for me that at this distressing moment Granville — 
 not Fothergill — was my physician. In fact, he made my case so 
 much his own, and entered so kindly, as well as considerately into 
 my situation, that I was made sensible of the egregious folly of 
 plunging into mere romance, at the expense of the plainest com- 
 mon sense, without being made to feel the humiliation of too severe 
 self-blame. 
 
 "Your position," said he, "has at least this advantage — your 
 mistress has broke no faith with you ; you are not numbered among 
 the jilted -, you cannot complain of ill-usage." 
 
 " And yet," said I, " ill-usage might give me spirit, and I should 
 have my pride to retire upon— here all is blank and barren— a 
 weary waste— 4 flat and unprofitable 1 — nothing but a garden of 
 weeds." 
 
 "Say not so," replied he, "for a garden more cultivated and 
 productive — the garden of the world— lies before you, if you would 
 but look at, and cultivate it. As for your pride, you must surely 
 be prouder than Louis XIV. himself, to suppose you are wronged, 
 because a lady to whom your never breathed a syllable of your love 
 has not returned it, or rather has not herself fallen in love with you: 
 and this I should say if you were a duke." 
 
 " I believe,' returned I, "I am a very great fool." 
 
 " Stick fo that," said he, " and your cure is at hand 5 for I sup- 
 pose you are not like Orlando, who, when Rosalind said she would 
 cure him, replied, that he would not be cured. But you are really 
 not so desperate 5 for though, as far as making verses by the side 
 of a brook is concerned, you may have 4 the quotidian of love' upon 
 you, you have none of the marks which the same Rosalind so learn- 
 edly enumerates. You have not the lean cheek; a sunken eye; a 
 beard neglected; hose ungartered; bonnet unhanded; sleeve un- 
 buttoned. You are rather 4 point-device in your accoutrements 
 Besides, though it were not so, and though Bertha is charming, 
 there are other Berthas in the world." 
 
 I almost started at this, and replied with quickness, 
 
 "My dear friend, I like your reasoning, but not your raillery, 
 I trust you think me not so common-place as to fly like a buttertU; 
 
 ! As You Like It-. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. Ml 
 
 From one flower to another 5 or that Bertha herself can be so little 
 valued : — 
 
 When the devout religion of mine eye 
 Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires." 
 
 "Good, 1 ' returned he; "we shall soon, no doubt, have you an 
 English Petrarch, burying yourself in some Yorkshire Vaucluse 5 
 or, like Camillo, flying to the mountains, to live with shepherds. 
 I shall certainly watch the county papers for an advertisement, 
 which will begin with — ' Whereas a melancholy man lately left his 
 abode, and is suspected of wandering in the neighbourhood of 
 Foljambe Park : whoever will give information " 
 
 "Never!" cried I, interrupting him, and unable to contain 
 myself — "never would I stoop to such humiliation. I should not 
 care if Bertha knew all my devotion 5 but never should that proud 
 family have such a triumph over me ! " 
 
 "I hail the resolution/' returned Granville, "and upon this 
 ground, if there were no other, I rest for your recovery. But there 
 is another." 
 
 I eagerly asked what ? 
 
 "Your own good sense, and your very love itself for Bertha, 
 whom, if you could win, you would not reduce to beggary and 
 estrangement from her family but whom not to have won, even 
 without an inkling of your attachment, affronts your pride it seems, 
 and gives you a right to be unhappy." 
 
 "My dear and true friend," I replied, " I own all my folly, and 
 you shall not complain of me. I will discard it, and you shall be 
 better pleased the next time we meet." 
 
 "Nobly resolved," said he, "Felix faustaque sit." 
 
 And we parted, I trust, with mutual esteem— certainly with 
 mutual kindness. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 I RETURN HOME TO MY FAMILY. — MY FEELINGS WHEN I GET THERE.— 
 PLEASURES OF SECLUSION. 
 
 Glad that you thus continue your resolve, 
 To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Taming of the Shrew. 
 
 I had now to prepare for very different scenes. My father, whom 
 I have not mentioned all this time, because engaged in the business 
 which brought him to York, had left me entirely to myself, and, 
 now the grand jury were dismissed, impatient to get home, he 
 scolded me for staying so long with Mr. Granville. 
 
142 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 
 
 We were soon on horseback, and I own I made but a sorry 
 companion lo my excellent parent. I was absent, silent, heavy, and 
 dull, and listened but drowsily to his observations upon the agricul- 
 ture of the country. I was, indeed, so lost and inattentive, or, when 
 I did attend, so ignorant, that he good-naturedly gave up the 
 altempt to engage me, saying, as a parting hit, " Ah ! Hugh, thou 
 may'st be a scholar, God bless thee, but thou wilt never make a 
 farmer." 
 
 It was the last thing I desired to make, and indeed felt at the 
 reproach much the same sort of disdain which Tom the footman, 
 in the " Conscious Lovers," does at the idea of a man in love being 
 sent for a teakettle. The good Mr. De Clifford, however, seeing he 
 could make nothing of me, fell at last into better company — his own 
 thoughts. He was absorbed by what might be going on at home, or 
 what might be the best course of crops for the soil of the West 
 Riding, and we jogged on, to my great satisfaction, in silence. 
 How my mind was employed, may perhaps be guessed. 
 
 On arriving at home, I was for some time occupied by the affec- 
 tionate offices of my mother, and the jollity of my brothers, the last 
 a stronger contrast than ever with my own reserved disposition, 
 now augmented twenty-fold. They, however, did not insist upon 
 my having the same spirits as themselves 5 which was all I wanted 5 
 and though they sometimes laughed at " I' young doctor," for not 
 knowing barley from wheat before it was in ear, upon the whole 
 they paid me due respect, particularly when they found me, as they 
 sometimes did, with a Greek folio before me. Upon these occasions 
 they would ask how soon I should put on petticoats and be in pulpit. 
 
 It may be supposed that the Hall-house was not unvisited, and 
 there also kindness awaited me ; but the ladies, though they were 
 not sorry to have a dashing Oxford man (for so they called me till 
 they knew better) among their followers, were less than ever en- 
 gaging in my eyes. Their manners were, like their dress, flaunting 
 and gaudy, and, by contrast, only reminded me the more of that 
 graceful repose and simple elegance which, with all her cheerful- 
 ness, characterized the being who still engrossed me. They were 
 animated and lively too, if being loud was to be animated, or being 
 boisterous, lively. But this also, from the same contrast, produced 
 rather disgust than admiration. Who ever, indeed, united so much 
 gentleness and intelligence, with so much animation, as Bertha? 
 
 Alas! how was I spoiled, and how much better, I thought, if, 
 like my brothers, I could have rejoiced if the Misses Goff honoured 
 me with a smile. This, however, was of little consequence, and I 
 only mention it to account for the devotion which, more than ever, 
 I gave to solitude. My lone walks were often protracted till mid- 
 night; I saw every bird lo bed, and was lulled to sleep in my own, 
 only by the far-off tinkling of the sheep bell. Often, indeed, without 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 sleeping, I would lie in a melancholy, but far from unpleasing, 
 reverie, gazing through the casement, purposely left open, to catch 
 the perfume of the honey-suckle which peered in at the window— 
 
 " While over head the moon 
 Sat arbitress, and nearer to the earth 
 Wheel'd her pale course." 
 
 These, after all, and spite of my hopeless thraldom, were charm- 
 ing moments, nor did I even wish to exchange them for liberty. 
 Thus I was a practical illustration of that exciting, but what most 
 would call unnatural, fancy expressed by the poet : — 
 
 " There's nought in this life sweet, 
 If men were wise to see't, 
 But only melancholy : 
 Oh ! sweetest melancholy ! " 
 
 The melancholy of a lover, however, is often very different from 
 that which is usually designated by the word. Though hopeless, I 
 was not miserable, and I clung to the comment Granville had made 
 upon my situation, that it was not that of a scorned or rejected lover. 
 With the usual elasticity of youth, I therefore encouraged myself 
 to believe that it was only the disparity of our lots which made 
 Bertha use the language she did, when she said that to suppose 
 love between us was slanderous as well as impertinent. I therefore 
 took no pains to perform my promise to Granville, to redeem my- 
 self; nay, I am afraid I was rather proud (I certainly was not 
 ashamed) of my chains, and though annoyed when forced into 
 company, I did any thing but what my brothers (and my father too) 
 thought I did— mope when alone. 
 
 Thus I might say with Gray, mine was rather a leuchocholy 
 than a melancholy. Certainly, I might say, my dreams of love were 
 like his low spirits, "true and faithful companions; they got up 
 with me, went to bed with me, made journeys and returns as I 
 did, nay, and paid visits, and would even affect to be jocose, and 
 force a laugh with me ; but most commonly we sat alone together, 
 and were the prettiest company in the world '." 
 
 In this love of being alone I was not a little assisted by my mo- 
 ther, with whom I was always a favourite, because she expected 
 great things from my atlachment to study : she accordingly gave, 
 or procured me, full and absolute dominion over a little retired 
 closet in the gable of the house, lighted only by a glazed door, 
 which opened upon a garden — if a court of some thirty feet square, 
 filled with sweet herbs, and a few of the common flowers, convol- 
 vulus, and nasturtium (dahlias were not then known)' — if this could 
 be called a garden. 
 
 However, there was a picturesque old wail, in which was a quaint 
 
 Gray to West. 
 
144 DE CLIFFORD, 
 
 old dial, much to my taste, and an ample spreading lime-tree, 
 which resounded with the hum of a thousand bees, and was the 
 haunt of blackbirds, and sometimes of a squirrel. It had, therefore, 
 an air of seclusion and companionship at the same time, and as 
 the only entrance to it was through the closet, which I considered 
 as mine, I had it all to myself ; which was exactly what I wished. 
 
 My father thought I was absorbed in study, which was partly 
 true, and left me alone ; and thus, night and day, I remained in 
 undisturbed possession of my mind, which was all I wanted 5 and 
 that mind, while thus allowed to enjoy itself, became to me a more 
 valuable possession than ever I knew it before. 
 
 My hermitage was delightful, for it gave all the freedom of 
 thought and action which solitude confers, without its drawback, 
 a sense of uncomfortable loneliness. All was quiet within, and no 
 fear of interruption from without, unless I chose it, — when the 
 cheerful sights and sounds of a busy farm made a pleasing diversion. 
 
 How much preferable to the solitary and monotonous, and there- 
 fore uninteresting, magnificence with which the great think it 
 part of their greatness to surround themselves ! This indeed was a 
 later lesson, which an acquaintance with palaces afterwards taught 
 me; palaces which, though filled with gilding and diamonds, are 
 generally, from the struggles and passions of their inmates (not 
 excepting their owners), destitute of the great diamond — con- 
 tent; palaces which, if not properly filled, have the sadness of a 
 desert 5 if filled, destroy from excitement all the calm and happiness 
 of life. 
 
 And thus I was brought more acquainted with myself than Ox- 
 ford, or the world, could have ever made me; and it is therefore 
 that I hail the remembrance of it now, as of a pleasure unalloyed, 
 because perfectly pure. 
 
 To this epoch, thus passed, though so young, in what I may call 
 a philosophical freedom, I may attribute much of that contempla- 
 tive habit, and that observation of life, which have belonged to me 
 ever since, and from which I have derived whatever independence 
 of adventitious circumstances I possess — so much more valuable 
 than all that riches, and still more that ambition, can give. This 
 disposition was greatly encouraged by the perusal of that quaint 
 old ballad which I found in a collection lent me by Sir Harry, enti- 
 tuled (according to the inscription), u The sweele and plesaunt 
 Sonet, called, My mind to me a Kingdom is." 
 
 So much indeed did my own mind chime in with its notable 
 sentiments of moral virtue, that I cannot refuse myself the pleasure 
 of refreshing my memory with some of its stanzas. 
 
 " My minde to mee a kingdome is, 
 Such perfect joye therein I find, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 145 
 
 As fare exceeds all earthly blisse, 
 
 That world affords or growes by kind ' . 
 Though much I want that most men have, 
 Yet doth my mind forbid me crave. 
 
 11 Content I live; this is my stay, 
 
 I seek no more than may suffice, 
 I presse to bear no haughty sway, 
 
 Looke what I lacke my mind supplies. 
 Lo ! thus I triumph like a king, 
 Content with that my mind doth bring. 
 
 «• I see how pi entie surfeits oft, 
 
 And hasty climbers oft do fall ; 
 I see how those that sit aloft , 
 
 Mishap doth threaten most of all, 
 They gete, they toyle, they spend with care, 
 Such cares my minde could never beare. 
 
 w Some have too much, yet still they crave, 
 
 I little have, yet seeke no more ; 
 They are but poore, though much they have, 
 
 And I am rich with little store. 
 They poore. I riche ; they beg, I give ; 
 They lacke, I lende ; they pine, I live." 
 
 These maxims of life, richer perhaps in wisdom than poetry, 
 became my compass, when, as I oft did, I floated upon the wave 
 of uncertainty as to the inequality of mankind in their different lots, 
 objects, and conduct } and they brought me up almost to a level 
 with those who I thought had disdained me ; so that I became less 
 and less dependant upon their smile or frown. 
 
 In this seclusion, with which letters had so much to do, it may 
 be supposed that Bertha's dear present of Gresset was not forgotten. 
 In fact, it became more my companion than ever, and, as may be 
 imagined, not solely for its use in keeping up my French. I was 
 indeed ever fond of Gresset for his own sake, and, in the humour I 
 was in, fastened with heightened relish on some lines which fell 
 in with my prevailing feelings even more than the wise saws of the 
 philosophic ballad I have quoted. Gresset, I thought, might have 
 been, like myself, tossed in the uncertainties of love, vexed by the 
 frown of the proud, or annoyed by the platitudes of the vulgar ; 
 and, like me too, had perhaps courted solitude, when he wrote the 
 following stanzas : 
 
 " Heureux qui, dans la paix secrete 
 D'une libre et belle 1 etraite, 
 Vit ignore^, content de peu, 
 Et qui ne se voit point sans eesse 
 Jouet de l'aveugle D6esse, 
 Ou dupe de l'aveugle Dieu." 
 
 In the frame of mind I have described, I was particularly de- 
 
 ' Derived from nature. 
 I. 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 lighted with this, and his ability, by the force of imagination alone, 
 to turn winter into spring : 
 
 " La, dansla liberty supreme, 
 Semant de fleurs tous les instans, 
 Dans l'empire de Phiver meme, 
 On trouve les jours du printemps." 
 
 O, charming dream ! I often exclaimed 5 would it could always 
 be realized ! But more charming still what follows : 
 
 " Calme heureux! loisir solitaire! 
 Quel lieu n'a point de quoi nous plaire, 
 Lorsqu'on y trouve le bonheur, 
 Lorsqu'on y vit sans spectateur, 
 Dans le silence litt6raire, 
 Loin de tout iraportun jaseur, 
 Loin des froids discours du vulgaire 
 Et des hauts tons de la grandeur." 
 
 This was indeed flatteringly delightful to the temper I was in, 
 and though an air-built castle, it was scarcely less pleasing on that 
 account. I longed, I panted to make it more substantial 5 meantime 
 was sufficiently happy with the semblance of it under the homely 
 paternal roof I have depicted. 
 
 In such pursuits as these 5 removed from every thing that could 
 annoy, or renew annoying images ; free from fear in the morning 
 of what I might meet in the day ; sensible that I was improving 
 myself, and with no temptation to distract me from the quiet scene 
 I had fallen upon ; in a little time I found myself calmed. I was 
 still a lover, but no longer that tumultuous, heart-swelling being, 
 hurried to the extremes of feeling, as love, mortified friendship, or 
 wounded pride, obtained the ascendant. 
 
 Of Bertha I still thought incessantly, and always with devotion 5 
 but no longer with that agitation, amounting to agony, whenever 
 I thought of my hopelessness. I was still hopeless, but less dis- 
 turbed, because the hopelessness was complete. And thus I still 
 continued, " religious in mine error," and still adored the sun, but 
 was happy in the adoration alone, without requiring that he should 
 do more than " look upon his worshipper. 1 ' In short, I had settled 
 the matter with myself. To love Bertha was my delight, my food • 
 to think of her, my fondest recreation; but to expect to gain her, 
 madness. 
 
 Upon the whole, I was a gainer, for the attachment was a vir- 
 tuous one, and as such preserved me from every thing vicious. 
 Listen to this, ye young, while yel untainted in the world ; for 
 whatever may be thought by the votaries of eternal dissipation and 
 sensual pleasures, of ail the guards that can be set over our virtue, 
 the most efficient is, the desire to be esteemed by a virtuous woman. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 147 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 SIR HARRY MELFORD OFFERS TO BERTHA, AND IS REFUSED. — CONSEQUENCES 
 OF THIS TO ME, IN THE FAMILY AT FOLJAMBE. 
 
 Think, therefore, on revenge, and cease to weep. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 2 Henry VI. 
 
 As mine is the history of mind, ungarnished by adventure, or any 
 of those stirring incidents or mysteries which, and which alone, can 
 kindle the attention of the reader of romance, I expect, if they have 
 not closed the book already, they will close it now. Yet perhaps 
 there are spirits which may think the picture I have given of my- 
 self, particularly in the last chapter, not wholly without interest. 
 " Nihil humani a me alienum puto" was a natural feeling be- 
 fore Terence recorded it, and those who wish to study their own 
 hearts by looking into the hearts of others may perhaps proceed; 
 though I give them notice that there are no conspiracies, murders, 
 prisons, or elopements ; not even a seduction, or a ghost, to be 
 found in my story. 
 
 But though I should be glad to please the world, as I write chiefly 
 to please myself, I shall proceed. 
 
 The repose, or what may be called the lull of my mind, which I 
 have described, ran great risk of being destroyed before the vaca- 
 tion was over, by a letter from Granville. He was not, perhaps, 
 politic in the communication, and the dale of it from Foljambe 
 Park, spite of my newly-acquired philosophy, filled me with trem- 
 or \ it was as follows : — 
 
 " It will not be easy for you to account for the conduct pursued 
 by Bertha, in regard to Sir Harry Melford. Most obsequious as 
 well as amiable • young, handsome, elegant, rich 5 — she has finally 
 declined his addresses, and he has departed the place after two 
 months' devoted attention, 
 
 ' Victus abit longeque ignotis exulat oris, 
 / Multa gemens ignominiam.' 
 
 u If love were not a thing totally unintelligible as to any prin- 
 ciple or rule which is supposed to govern it, I should never have 
 done wondering. For even you are liberal enough to confess that 
 Sir Harry was every way worthy of her. The affair has cost her 
 many tears, from the rough and oppressive manner in which she has 
 been treated by her brother. The latter examined her most tyran- 
 nically, and with so little delicacy, that the shock it has given to 
 her affection for him will not, 1 fear, soon be recovered. He was 
 
148 
 
 DE CLIFFORD^ 
 
 violent even to fury, and I fear to add what he said of you. In fact, 
 you fully shared his indignation ; he accusing you in terms to his 
 father of having made advances to Bertha, and her for having lis- 
 tened to them at York. For this he adduces our cousin Mansell as 
 a witness, who, never a favourite of Bertha, was perhaps not sorry 
 to revenge himself by the colouring (a most unfair one) which he 
 gave to the conversation at the brook, and to another in the ball- 
 room at the assizes. Charles, indeed, traces it further 5 even up to 
 the visit you made to Foljambe Park when a boy. Of this I could 
 know nothing 5 but as, out of pure justice to Bertha, I bore tes- 
 timony to the incorrectness of Mansell's report, I find myself in- 
 volved deeply in this family quarrel. The worst of it is, that though 
 I can depose most honestly to Bertha's perfect innocence (begging 
 pardon of your self-love) of being moved by you, I cannot acquit 
 you (indeed, you would not wish to be acquitted) of the sin of being 
 moved by her. Upon my knowledge of this, and with having en- 
 couraged you to hope, I was challenged with so much heat by Fol- 
 jambe, that I could not put up with it, but rejected his suspicions 
 with disdain, nor would I stoop to answer the charge. 
 
 " All this passed in the presence of Mr. Hastings and his daughter, 
 and the latter was made exceedingly thoughtful by it, but said not 
 a word ; the former was less moved than I expected, or rather he 
 treated the matter with a coolness and discretion, accompanied with 
 a dignified superiority, which made me admire him. In truth, the 
 vehemence of Charles's character has for some time annoyed him 5 
 particularly as he sees, what everybody else has seen, that he is of 
 so uncontrollable a spirit that nothing but the absolute dominion 
 over his whole family, the head of it not excepted, will content him. 
 It was hence, perhaps, that Mr. Hastings desired him to calm him- 
 self both as to his sister and me. ' She has declared herself,' said 
 my uncle, 4 totally innocent of the revolting accusation ( you see 1 
 conceal no expression ) which you have brought against her. I, 
 myself, have more reason than I choose to reveal to one who 
 usurps so much authority where he has no right to any, to feel sure 
 of the truth of her assertion, and I will not have it questioned. Then, 
 in regard to the conduct pursued by your cousin Granville, I see 
 not that we have any right to complain of him for having made a 
 discovery, even if he did so, the knowledge of which could do us no 
 harm, any more than the thing discovered. Your sister has dis- 
 claimed the imputation as slanderous 5 I will not have her truth 
 disputed, and if you cannot confide in it I am sorry for you. As to 
 Mr. De Clifford himself, who is at least a gentleman by birth, what- 
 ever his condition, — if he is unwise enough to place his affection 
 where it is not, and never can by possibility be returned, I lament 
 it for his own sake ; but you have no right, without proof, to impute 
 to him what it would be derogatory to his discretion to suspect 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 149 
 
 without reason. You have shewn caprice and ingratitude enough 
 towards this gentleman, whose chief fault, I believe, has been his 
 presuming to give you good advice at Oxford, which I wish you had 
 taken. Meantime I will not suffer my little Bertha to be disho- 
 noured by degrading suspicions, nor shall she be tyrannized over 
 before her time by a brother who I wish resembled her more than 
 he does in propriety of conduct, as well as disposition of mind.' 
 
 " This speech, which seemed wholly unexpected by Charles 
 though it made him more quiet, did not make him less moody. He, 
 perhaps, knew that Mr. Hastings, with the calmness which always 
 belongs to a man of quality, had also the firmness which is by no 
 means incompatible with it. He was any thing but humble in his 
 looks, which at first exhibited proud defiance 5 nevertheless, in the 
 end, he succumbed under the cool and determined air of authority 
 and self-possession which his father exhibited, and which I really 
 did not know, till then, had belonged to him in all its extent. Fol- 
 jambe, therefore, contented himself with making a retreat in silence. 
 
 " Bertha, much moved, embraced her father with tears of gra- 
 titude, who kissed her and told her he never would suspect her of 
 acting so unworthily, or you so dishonourably, as to entertain, even 
 in thought, what Foljambe, in his passion, had ascribed to you both. 
 He then desired her to find out her brother, and receive the apo- 
 logy which he was sure he would make her for having done her so 
 much wrong. 
 
 " The expectation, however, was disappointed ; for the dinner 
 afterwards passed in cold constraint between the brother and sister, 
 and a sullen gloom on his part towards his father, which did not 
 escape the notice of Mr, Hastings, though, unwilling to revive the 
 subject, he made no remark. 
 
 " In point of cheerfulness, then, we are not a little changed from 
 that harmony which once prevailed, and my regard for you has in- 
 duced me to make this communication, as a reason for your exerting 
 yourself to the utmost to eradicate those feelings, the mere suspicion 
 of which, you see, has produced a breach of that family union, 
 which of all men you would be the last to interrupt. I am also in- 
 duced to make it from the absolute necessity there is for you to awa- 
 ken from a dream which you may more than ever perceive nothing 
 but madness can make you entertain ; for to pursue the philoso- 
 pher's stone with a hope of success would, I am quite sure, not be 
 so mad as to hope for Bertha. This, indeed, you tell me you never 
 did. Can you then have a doubt what to do? 
 
 " As I am not yet banished the house by the modern Tybalt her 
 brother — -and, indeed. I think both she and her father would not be 
 sorry for such a diversion as my presence can give — I stay a few 
 days longer at their request; a circumstance which, as Foljambe has 
 very honestly apprized me, is not favoured with his approbation. In 
 
150 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 a word, he is so bilter against you, for what he calls your presump- 
 tion, and me for abetting you in it, as he says I do, and carries all 
 his feelings to such an excess, that I cannot help thinking there is 
 danger in him. Openness as to the extent of those feelings, and in- 
 deed as to every thing, is the only redeeming quality he has, and a 
 great one it is. I wish he would allow me to like him more. Adieu ! 
 I have fulfilled a duty to him and to you • profit by it. 
 
 " Robert Granville." 
 
 It would not be easy to say what my feelings were on the perusal 
 of this letter, except that they were a compound of grief and mor- 
 tification, and yet of indignation and resentment at what I thought 
 the indignities put upon me, not only by Foljambe, but even, as I 
 thought, by his father. What could be his reason, which he chose 
 not to reveal, for not allowing his daughter's assertions to be ques- 
 tioned? Had he expressed his abhorrence of me to her, and in his 
 pride thought that sufficient? I felt, indeed, that by them all I was 
 treated as a despised outcast, and in regard to my quondam friend, 
 like old Cassius, I felt 
 
 1 Hated by one I loyed, checked like a bondman ; ' 
 
 and like a bondman, with no power, or hope of power, ever to as- 
 sert my equality as a man with those who thus looked down upon 
 me. Oh, the throes that this occasioned wherever I went ! 
 
 One of my favourite haunts was the churchyard of Bardolfe, on 
 account of a walk of limes, the foliage of which, in the old quaint 
 fashion, was cut into arched windows which overlooked the Bar- 
 dolfe river, washing the ruins of the old castle, and therefore to me 
 full of deep interest, not lessened by the thought of who had been 
 and who was now the owner of it ; flattering the heart as well as the 
 imagination with the semblance of a connection between them, 
 however far fetched. Here I had sometimes recovered myself into 
 calm after agitation, and here I directed my steps on the present 
 occasion, hoping the same result. But the crisis was too violent 
 and after pacing the walk several times, the letter open in my hand, 
 read, and re-read, till I could read no more, T found myself ex- 
 claiming, 
 
 " Which way I fly is hell—myself am hell ; " 
 
 and throwing myself at the foot of a tree, though I gazed apparently 
 upon the landscape below, for a long time I gazed upon vacancy. 
 
 By degrees my power of vision returned : I began to discern ob- 
 jects 5 the river, the quiet meadows through which it flowed 5 the 
 tranquil cottages which bordered it. These, as they always did, di- 
 verted my thoughts, and the paroxysm a little subsided, only how- 
 ever lo assume a darker character, with a more lasting effect 5 for my 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 151 
 
 spirit rebelled. I could forgive, I thought, the being forbidden to 
 aspire, but not the being despised. The anger of my estranged 
 friend I met with equal fire 5 but what I called the cool disdain of 
 Mr. Hastings hurt me ; and for the first time I became a radical, 
 who could not brook the inequality of mankind. 
 
 It is astonishing with what sincerity of disgust, and determination 
 of purpose, this got hold of me, and made me give the whole aris- 
 tocracy of England to the devil. I then fell, as I usually did when 
 under excitement, into soliloquy, and, notwithstanding my devo- 
 tion, found myself complaining of Bertha herself, in no measured 
 language for 
 
 " Wan despair, 
 Low, sullen sounds ray grief beguiled, 
 A solemn, strange, and mingled air, 
 'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild." 
 
 Despair, however, and a sense of affront, by calling out a retri- 
 butive feeling, will sometimes do great things ; and with a noble 
 contempt of all the persons whose contempt, as I thought it, had so 
 hurt me, I once more resolved, though now from different motives, 
 to drive them from my mind for ever. In mere resentment, there- 
 fore, I gave myself up to vengeance ; which however only amounted 
 to this, that I resolved to rise to eminence in the world. 
 
 How I was to do this, I did not stand much to inquire, but I re- 
 solved it. I may not make a fortune, thought I, but I am deter- 
 mined to be distinguished ; and this shall be my revenge on these 
 proud Hastingses. 
 
 The notion consoled and gave me a momentary elevation ; I rose 
 from the bank on which I had been lying, and, after taking a few 
 turns in the walk with a firmer tread, I stalked majestically towards 
 home. 
 
 In the disposition I have described, as I proceeded from the 
 churchyard hill, I met Sir Harry Goff and his daughters, who all re- 
 proached me for having, as they said, deserted them. This, at least, 
 seemed friendly, and I felt so deserted myself, that, notwithstanding 
 my gloom, it gave me something like pleasure. I thought Sir Harry 
 quite»as kind, and less pompous in his kindness, than usual ; and 
 for the daughters, whether from being really better, because more 
 simply dressed, or that the walk had given a peculiar freshness to 
 their complexions ; or because, from some unknown cause, they 
 were quieter and less dashing than ordinary 5 they certainly appeared 
 more than ordinarily natural, and I always was fond of nature. 
 
 Miss Caroline, the eldest, and generally the loudest, had grown 
 almost sentimental •, and Miss Imogene, the youngest, no longer 
 talked of the titled people she had met at Scarborough. Miss Caro- 
 line, too, engaged my attention by saying, while she eyed the ruins 
 of Castle Bardolfe, how much they always affected her with the love 
 
152 DE CLIFFORD *, 
 
 of the olden time, and how much it would please her to have a real 
 Bardolfe for her knight. Miss Imogene, on the other hand, asked 
 me a great deal about my Oxford studies, and talked of Addison. 
 
 Whatever was the reason, I attended to them more than usual, 
 and for the first time observed that they had regular features and in- 
 telligent eyes. I grew gradually less splenetic as I observed this, 
 and, to my surprise, found I was not only able to bear them, but 
 even tried to be civil. It is very certain that the adverse comparison 
 I always made between them and Bertha, was less adverse this 
 evening than it ever had been before. 
 
 The walk grew pleasant; and having accompanied them home, I 
 could not refuse their invitation that I should attend their tea-table. 
 After that repast, they obeyed their father's summons to their in- 
 struments, one on the piano, the others on the harp, on both of 
 which, it is but justice to say, they discoursed very passable music. 
 In short, to my astonishment, after the excitement I had felt two 
 hours before, and though my mind was still full of Bertha, yet it was 
 not so exclusively full but that I was able to tolerate the presence 
 of two pretty women, who at least treated me without disdain. In 
 the little pomp, too, of their father's manner, there was mingled so 
 much heartiness, that I was able to compare it, without disparage- 
 ment, with the lofty and awe-inspiring demeanour of Mr. Hastings. 
 
 Upon the whole, considering what had so recently absorbed and 
 festered my heart, I was struck with wonder that any thing could 
 mix itself with it, not merely without increasing the sore, but with 
 something like a diversion of the malady. It was a problem in ethi- 
 cal science which engaged all my mind to solve (if I did solve it) in 
 my moonlight walk home. 
 
 This was certainly the first time since my acquaintance with Ber- 
 tha that I thought the Goffs tolerable. Was Granville right, then, 
 when he said, " there were other Berthas in the world?" It is most 
 certain that on this memorable evening I did all I could to think so, 
 and found myself not shocked by a comparison I made of Miss 
 Goff's commanding figure, and Miss Imogene's lustrous eyes, with 
 the corresponding attractions of Miss Hastings. 
 
 Let not my readers wonder at Ibis, or call it unnatural/ How 
 many lovers have withdrawn their allegiance from a cruel mistress 
 to give it to a kinder one? Witness Romeo — and who shall question 
 the authority of him who described that change? Even in common 
 life, how many marriages have been perpetrated out of mere re- 
 sentment. 
 
 Heaven knows, however, my constancy, even under what I 
 thought unkindness, was in little danger 5 for when I had thought 
 myself to sleep in thinking whether Bertha was so much superior to 
 the Goffs, I awoke the next morning, decided in opinion, that no 
 comparison could be made between her and any one else in the 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 153 
 
 world. The evening rencontre seemed a drearn ; I found myself 
 still the willing slave I had been, and Bertha still the paramount 
 queen and lady of my heart. 
 
 A settled resignation (I will not call it melancholy) now took pos- 
 session of me, as I revolved all that Granville had written. I quite 
 agreed with him as to (what indeed I had never disputed) the mad- 
 ness of hope 5 and this was only strengthened by the account given 
 of the feelings of the family towards me. 
 
 Yet, though this account was only natural and to be expected, 
 such is the natural self-respect of man, that I felt more aggrieved 
 than humbled by it. They have a right, I said, nay, they ought to 
 refuse my alliance ; but they have no right to despise me. 
 
 As far, therefore, as Foljambe was concerned, with whom I had 
 once been on such terms of equality, I felt my spirit erect and in- 
 depeadent, and thought of him with the same disdain for his pride 
 and inconstancy as he did of me for my inferiority. I had done be- 
 wailing the loss of his friendship, and cared not for the rest. But 
 Bertha was so entwined round my heart, that I could not pluck her 
 from it, and as long as her own was free, of which her refusal of Sir 
 Harry Melford was proof, I thought there could be no harm in en- 
 throning her my sovereign, myself a silent, distant, and respectful 
 subject. This could hurt no one but myself; and having thus com- 
 promised the matter, my interest about her, though not subdued, 
 became calmer, and settled down into a quiet habitual tenderness, 
 unruffled by uncertainty, because destitute of prospect. It became, 
 as I have said, part of myself — even as it were, constitutional — yet 
 allowing me full liberty of thought and action in every thing else, 
 and free to attend to all objects of improvement and amusement or 
 observation that might present themselves. 
 
 One good (a lasting one, as I have before observed) arose from it 
 — it kept me purer; for the thought of her character and manners 
 confirmed and preserved whatever good there was in my own. 
 
 In this improved stale I returned to college, where I was received 
 with all his usual kindness, and, I may add, his usual curiosity, as 
 to the state of my mind, by the good and observing Fothergill. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 1 OPEN MY WHOLE MIND TO FOTHERGILL. — HE SETS BEFORE ME THE PRACTICAL 
 DANGERS OF MESALLIANCE. 
 
 A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife. 
 
 Shakspeaue.— Othello. 
 
 The thoughts of my excellent tutor had, it seems, been much 
 employed upon me during the vacation; for though he had always 
 
154 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 fell pleasure in directing the conduct and forming the character of 
 all his pupils, not only his relationship, but, as he was pleased to 
 say, my peculiar temperament, made him particularly anxious 
 about me. There was something, he said, in the position into which 
 I had fallen, that made my case more interesting, as well as novel, 
 than any he had before encountered ; and it exercised all his dispo- 
 sition to observe and moralize. 
 
 Folhergill had not himself, I believe, ever been a lover, but he 
 viewed a love case, as he did ail others which affected human con- 
 duct, with the acuteness of a practical philosopher, busied with 
 the investigation of Raman life and manners. Mine, therefore, he 
 told me had, even in absence, emphatically engaged him 5 a proof 
 of which he had actually prepared for me against my return, in 
 some notes lie had made of a critical visit to an old friend during 
 the recess. 
 
 This, however, was after a frank communication, which, at his 
 desire, I made him, of the whole history of my mind and actions 
 from the time I left Oxford, in which he marked, with his usual sa- 
 gacity, the bad effects of my irresolution and final discomfiture in the 
 outset, when, against my own fixed determination, I left the beaten 
 road to Ferrybridge, for the flowery but dangerous route to Fol- 
 jambe Park. 
 
 " This," said he, £C must have been the contrivance of the Demon 
 Asmodeus himself, who delights in ensnaring young blockheads to 
 their destruction. I shall have a plaguy task to get you right again. 
 However, some of your adventures have amused me, and I am at 
 any rate glad that the spell which bound you to the brother is 
 broken, whatever becomes of that of the sister. That indeed seems 
 considerably weakened, and, notwithstanding your professions in 
 verse and prose by the side of a warbling brook, you will, I trust, 
 be disenchanted by the business of the world. Meantime I have 
 noted down for you some occurrences in the histories of two old 
 friends and pupils of mine, which bear, I think, so pointedly on our 
 former subject of unequal marriages, that I cannot help recommend- 
 ing them to your attention. 
 
 4C One of these stories," continued Folhergill, " is of Mr. Benja- 
 min Bostock, who, not to be sure so highly descended as a Clifford 
 and a Bardolfe, but far richer (indeed a very rich man), had thought 
 himself blessed by being accepted as a husband by a very poor lady 
 of very high quality. The other is of Charles Sedley, well bred, 
 well born, sufficiently wealthy, and used to the very best, nay, re- 
 fined society, for which he himself seemed most fitted both by nature 
 and disposition, and yet unhappy with a wife of his own choosing. 
 This gentleman, in a fit of romance, bestowed himself on a very 
 pretty female, of vulgar, or, as he called it, middling condition. 
 Both these friends of mine seem to have been worse treated by their 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 155 
 
 stars than they deserved 5 and having been entreated by both to visit 
 them, which I did in this last vacation, 1 kept a sort of journal of 
 the result, which I will now shew you." 
 
 On these words, unlocking a drawer, he placed in my hands 
 several sheets of paper, which he desired me to take to my rooms 
 and deliberately consider. I did so, and present a summary of both 
 histories in the following abstracts. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Bostock was the son of a very considerable coun- 
 try brewer, wharfinger, and barge-owner, who, from having been a 
 mere clerk and overseer to his predecessor in the business, rose by 
 his honesty and patient industry, coupled with a great deal of natural 
 sense, to be first a partner, and at last sole owner of the concern. 
 
 Without much education himself, he was resolved to give a 
 liberal one to his only son, Benjamin, whom he sent first to Rugby, 
 and then to Oxford, u where I had the good fortune, 1 ' says Folher- 
 gill, "to become his tutor. I call it so, because I never knew a 
 young man of better disposition, or more intent upon improving 
 himself in all liberal accomplishments. He was kind and open in 
 his temper, had a taste for the arts, and a similarity of mind in all 
 things but one, produced an intimacy between us different from the 
 usual relations of tutor and pupil, for it did not end on his leaving 
 college for the world. Hence, though we hardly ever saw one 
 another afterwards, we sometimes corresponded, and he even con- 
 sulted me on some of his proceedings of critical importance to his 
 welfare. 
 
 With many excellent qualities, Bostock had some weaknesses, so 
 common as to find excuse at least in the example of others. Though 
 far from being proud, he was ashamed of his origin, and ambitious 
 to rise higher in society than he felt himself to be. Though the 
 business left him by his father was lucrative, he therefore resolved 
 to quit it altogether, as he had already quitted the homely though 
 comfortable habitation amidst his wharfs, where it had contented 
 his father to dwell. He therefore removed to a purchase he had 
 made, with that view, called Hall Barn. Here he commenced squire 5 
 lived hospitably, though plainly, did good, and was happy. 
 
 During a visit, however, to London, where he passed a month or 
 two in the winter, he made the acquaintance, through her brother, 
 Lord Brandon, of Lady Cherubina Bragge. The family were high, 
 but desperately poor, and though perhaps, as is often the case, only 
 prouder for their poverty, yet their pride was not of that uncom- 
 promising kind which would spurn a plebeian alliance, or rather 
 mesalliance , if it was accompanied by a proper equivalent in point 
 of purse. On the contrary, Lord Brandon himself was, even as a 
 young man, a votary of prudence, and his sister being left depen- 
 dant upon him, utterly without fortune, a man worth a plum and 
 a half, and totally free from trade, though a wharfinger's son, was 
 
156 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 by no means, as Lord Brandon himself told Lady Cherubina, to be 
 
 sneezed at. 
 
 Lady Cherubina thought so too, and a very slight club acquaint- 
 ance, between her brother and my friend, was cultivated — with 
 what views, you may guess. One of Bostock's weaknesses, as I have 
 told you, was a strong desire to raise himself in the scale of society. 
 He was alive to elegance and beauty, and Lady Cherubina, who was 
 both elegant and beautiful, was only prevented from shewing how 
 much she was so by the res angusta domi. Lord Brandon, in 
 fact, could supply her with little pin-money 5 but as Bostock, 
 though not too rich for an earl's sister,' might be able to make this 
 up to her, the prospect of doing so, and therefore of attaching her 
 the more to himself, if only from gratitude^ he said, had no small 
 influence with him in his views to happiness. 
 
 In fact, Bostock's nature was generous, and the very contracted 
 mode of living to which Lord Brandon and his sister were forced 
 to submit, while it emboldened him in his aspirations, pleased his 
 spirit in the thought that he could bestow upon her the ease and 
 comfort she deserved. 
 
 AH this, as the acquaintance went on, was more and more che- 
 rished by the moderation, not only in practice, but in sentiment, as 
 far as he could judge from his conversation, which seemed to be- 
 long to both the lady and her brother. 
 
 " In short," continued FortherguTs memoir, < ' an offer was made 
 and accepted, during the interval between which — that is, after 
 the offer, but before the acceptance — my friend, to guard against a 
 false step, did me the honour to ask my advice; not telling me that 
 he had already decided. I gave it very honestly, and indeed stre- 
 nuously, against the proceeding ; for I had long before formed 
 those opinions upon the imprudence of unequal marriages, which 
 I have endeavoured to impress upon you. 
 
 "Unluckily, my remonstrance came too late, for he had been 
 accepted the very day when my letter arrived, and my only com- 
 fort was, that, knowing nothing of Lady Cherubina, I had confined 
 myself to general, and had made no personal allusions. I left him, 
 therefore, to his fate, and as he told me he was happy, I believed 
 him. I could not, indeed, well make out why he had changed the 
 name of his house from the old English Hall Barn, by which it had 
 been formerly known, to so Frenchified a name as Beaumanoir, by 
 which it had been newly christened; but as he told me it was only 
 in indulgence of an amiable little whim of Lady Cherubina, whom 
 he was bound, from her condescension in marrying him, to gra- 
 tify in every thing that was reasonable, and I had no means of judg- 
 ing of the reasonableness of this, though I had my suspicions, I let 
 it pass. 
 
 u As he had now been married two years, and his letters, though 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 157 
 
 few, always announced thai he was happy, I also discharged those 
 suspicions. Still it was not without curiosity that I accepted an in- 
 vitation to pay him a visit in the summer at his new-christened house. 
 
 "On arriving, I was struck with what I thought a strange in- 
 congruity, in a porch of elaborate Grecian architecture with Co- 
 rinthian pillars, stuck upon the plain, old-fashioned edifice, whose 
 many gables, picturesque enough in themselves, seemed put to 
 shame by this heterogeneous modern addition ; nor could my quaint 
 fancy help thinking it might be a sort of emblem of the alliance of 
 my friend, Benjamin Bostock, with Lady Cherubina Bragge. 
 When I afterwards pointed it out to him as a want of keeping, 
 which, with his good taste, I wondered at, he, with some hesita- 
 tion, acknowledged it, and that he had even remonstrated against 
 it; but it was Lady Cherubina's fancy, which, after all she had done 
 for him, he could not well oppose. 
 
 u I quite approved this grateful disposition of his. To Lady Che- 
 rubina I now expected to be introduced, he having sent her up 
 word of my arrival, and requesting her presence. But when the 
 door opened, and I expected the ceremony of being presented to 
 the lady of Beaumanoir, I was somewhat surprised with the flip- 
 pant lone of a groom of the chamber, in silk stockings and gold- 
 laced knee -bands, who, addressing his master with the literal 
 answer of his mistress, said, ' Sir, my lady says she begs you will 
 entertain Mr. Fothergill as well as you can yourself till dinner-time, 
 as she is really so busy that she cannot see him till then.' 
 
 "I saw my friend was hurt at this ; but not knowing what to 
 make of it, I formed no conjecture, farther than to suppose Lady 
 Cherubina was a woman who knew the value of time. 
 
 " A gay landau and four now drove up to the door, with a foot- 
 man, a valet, and lady's-maid outside, and two ladies and as many 
 gentlemen within 5 and bandboxes and packages innumerable, 
 (hough no more seemingly than was necessary for so many people. 
 They were eagerly kissing their hands to some one in the window 
 above, whom I rightly judged to be Lady Cherubina ; but what sur- 
 prised me was, that, far from being eager to meet them, Bostock 
 did not seem pleased. 4 They are my lady's cousins,' said he, 6 and 
 have come too soon by an hour, as they will prevent a walk in the 
 garden. I hope, however, they will not come in here, and we may 
 then escape through the glass door. 1 
 
 " His hope was not disappointed; for though the door of the 
 room was thrown open, and all the four heads poured in at once, 
 they as precipitately withdrew, as if by common consent, and, with- 
 out the least notice of the master of the house, the whole party ran 
 up stairs, one of the ladies exclaiming in the way, 4 It is only 
 Bostock and somebody wilh him 5 let us go to Cherubina's dressing- 
 room. ' 
 
158 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 44 My friend looked somewhat abarhed at this, but forebore any 
 remark, except that they were all such friends ! He then invited 
 me into the garden, where I found a strange medley, owing to most 
 fearful alterations in the act of being perpetrated. The original plan 
 of the inclosure had been in the character of the house, old- 
 fashioned, straight gravel walks, clipl hedges, and yews cut into 
 shapes, pyramidal, globular, and now and then a peacock. But all 
 these were giving way to an attempt at both an Italian and a French 
 garden \ much trellis, and many balustrades, forming as much in- 
 congruity with the mansion as the porch in the other front. 
 
 44 I had not quite recovered my surprise at the cavalier conduct 
 to my friend of his guests just arrived, and we both were for some 
 time silent, till at last, by way of something to say, looking at the 
 alterations going forward, I observed, 4 1 suppose this too is the 
 taste of Lady Cherubina?' 
 
 44 He seemed a little embarrassed, when he replied, 4 You are 
 right ,5 but it is all unfinished, and it is not fair to judge. That trim 
 hedge and all those yews are to come down.' 
 
 4 4 4 A pity,' said I, though hesitatingly, for I saw it was against 
 his own wish ; 4 (hose y^ws seem five hundred years old, and assort 
 so well with the house. 1 
 
 4 4 4 True,' said he, 4 but things are not advanced enough to be 
 understood, and everybody allows Lady Cherubina has so exquisite 
 a taste, and she was so decided about it, I thought it a pity, and 
 useless, to thwart her. 7 
 
 " I felt this unanswerable, particularly the last part of the asser- 
 tion, so tried to change the subject, but was saved the trouble by 
 another barouche and four, the very counterpart of the first arrival 
 ( dead and live lumber inside and out ), which drove up to the porch 
 and began to unload. 
 
 44 Seeing my surprise and almost dismay at this, Bostock ob- 
 served, 4 It is only Lord Gay hurst, and his two sons and daughter, 
 the uncle, and some more cousins of Lady Cherubina ; they always 
 come here preparatory to the first of September. Perhaps I ought 
 to have apprised you of it, knowing your retired habits 5 but to tell 
 you the truth, I was afraid you would not come if you had known it." 
 
 4 4 4 1 trust there are no more,' said I, somewhat annoyed ; which 
 I saw rather discomposed him. 
 
 4 4 4 1 am not sure,' answered he, again somewhat embarrassed, 
 4 for visitors are always Lady Cherubina's province ; and I never 
 know exactly— that is, she does not always tell me how many or 
 whom she invites. 1 
 
 4 4 4 Is that quite so comfortable or convenient V asked 1 5 but seeing 
 that he was a little flurried, I added — heaven forgive the equivoca- 
 tion — 4 it at least shews on what very pleasant terms you must be 
 together.' 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 159 
 
 ci c Why, yes,' replied he, 4 it is pleasant to have no restraint on 
 either side, and Lady Cherubina has done so much for me, that it 
 would be hard if she was not her own mistress in these respects.' 
 
 " £ Or in any others,' I was about to add; but recollecting we were 
 not at Queen's, I checked my tutorlike customs, and was silent. 
 
 " I own I was annoyed by the prospect of all this company, 
 having promised myself a quiet week with my old pupil, to say 
 nothing of a wish to investigate his real position as a husband, in 
 a marriage so unequal in point of rank. Not that I thought there 
 might not be happiness if each parly studied the thing as they 
 ought 5 that is, if the gentleman made up his inferiority in birth and 
 connections by great decision of character and superiority of mind, 
 and the lady had sense and moderation enough duly to appreciate 
 his merits 5 but here I doubled both. Bostock was too sensitive, I 
 had almost said too modest, too much alive to his own deficiencies 
 in birth and breeding, to be firm in asserting himself against his 
 highbred wife, if she chose to oppose his authority 5 and, from what 
 I have heard, the Lady Cherubina was no cherub in nature, what- 
 ever she might be in name. 
 
 " Bui the awful ceremony of introduction now approached, and 
 put an end to all my speculations. For I felt forced to brush up all 
 my old recollections of the fine manners I had formerly seen, when 
 I found myself in a rich drawing-room, furnished in the most costly 
 tasle by this high lady, and surrounded by half a dozen of her high 
 relations, with no one of my own degree to give me countenance, 
 except my friend, who, though the master of the house and giver 
 of the feast, I grieve to say, seemed to stand quite as much in need 
 of countenance as myself. 
 
 " His wife, to do her justice, was a very magnificent person, 
 tall and well-shaped, with a commanding, perhaps 1 might say a 
 haughty air, eyes like basilisks, and hair in dark profusion. The 
 former flashed incessantly, and yet seemed to have but little senti- 
 ment in them. She was any thing but soft 5 fitter we might say for 
 a queen among subjects, than the wife of a bourgeois gentilhomme, 
 which, with all his merits, I am afraid, in the midst of his fine com- 
 pany, my poor friend appeared to be. 
 
 " Indeed, the company seemed so to consider him, and when he 
 saluted them, returned him bul a slight recognition — the men with 
 a distant jerk of their chins, the women with a slight bend, instead 
 of a courtesy ; no shaking of hands, but all immediately turning 
 away to talk to the sovereign lady. Lord Gay hurst, who, from not 
 being admitted into the younger circle, ( faute d'agremens ), 
 himself wanted employment, was the oniy person who seemed dis- 
 posed to converse with him. 
 
 " All this engaged me during the four or five minutes which 
 passed before I was presented, for which I prepared myself with 
 
160 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 due resignation, yel a little wondering at the delay. For Bostock, 
 though so generally hearty in his manner, shewed no alacrity to 
 perform this necessary ceremony. Indeed, the lady was obliged 
 herself to force it on, and, coming to the place where I stood at 
 her husband's elbow, said, in a loud, decided tone, but with a vi- 
 sible air of condescension, promising even to be one of protection 
 if necessary, 6 You are Mr. Folhergill, I suppose, my husband's 
 tutor formerly at Oxford. I have often heard him speak of you, 
 and your visit will make him happy. Indeed, he often wants the 
 society of an old friend of his own set, to talk of former days, which 
 is what he can seldom do here among so many strangers. I am 
 quite glad you have come, for it will put him in his element, and 
 be a comfortable change for him.' 
 
 " Having said this, she returned to her friends in the circle she 
 had left, who all seemed to admire her for such proper and amiable 
 condescension. 
 
 "To own the truth, she did it vaslly well 5 whether friend 
 Bostock had reason to admire her too, especially when she talked 
 of his being among strangers in the midst of his wife's family, is 
 another question. 
 
 " When dinner was announced, being no stranger to the etiquette 
 which prevails in fashionable life upon these occasions, I was curious 
 to observe what would be the proceeding 5 and as I knew my own 
 place, that is, that I had no place at all, I very quietly kept behind, 
 watching the rest of the party. 
 
 " And here I rather felt for my timid pupil. As master of the 
 house, there could be no doubt of his duty, which was, to offer his 
 arm to the lady of the highest rank. This was Lady Sophia 
 Gayhurst, who probably, knowing what custom required, could not 
 have refused it; but seeing him rather falter, and uncertain what to 
 do, she, nothing loath (indeed, very willingly), took the arm of a 
 more lively and more decided personage, a well-dressed Mr. 
 Wilmot, who slept in critically between her and Bostock, whom he 
 thus threw out. 
 
 "The worst was, that as all the other guests, in expectation of 
 his escorting Lady Sophia, as a thing of course, had matched 
 themselves, he was left without a mate, and instead of leading the 
 van, brought up the rear, with me for a partner-, — nor was he 
 relieved by hearing Lady Cherubina laughingly exclaim, 'That is 
 so like Bostock's awkwardness.' 
 
 "At dinner this little accident was not without its consequences; 
 for Lady Sophia, having secured Mr. Wilmot, forgot that Bostock, 
 as master of the house, had a sort of right to her as a neighbour, 
 and scudding to the upper end of the table, seized a chair next to 
 Lady Cherubina and this seemed so preferable an arrangement to 
 the lady next in precedency, that she too abandoned the lord of the 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 161 
 
 feast, and the rest following the example, he was left altogether 
 without notice, with only myself and a brother clergyman, who 
 happened to dine with us, for his supporters. 
 
 "Though in reality this was a relief to him, as it delivered him 
 from the irksomeness of talking to unwilling ears, I saw plainly that 
 he was disconcerted 5 and he was certainly not consoled by his lady's 
 remark from the other end of the table, that Lady Sophia had only 
 properly punished him for his want of attention. At this Lady Sophia 
 laughed, the other ladies giggled, and the laugh and the giggle were 
 echoed by the male cousins, all men of determined fashion. Boslock 
 had nothing left for it but to laugh too, which he did, rather 
 awkwardly, and took refuge in carving; which, and being able to 
 talk without restraint with two musty parsons, one on each side, 
 consoled him in the end for the seemingly total neglect of the rest 
 of the company. 
 
 "I own I felt outraged by this gross breach of good (which I 
 have long found is by no means the same as fine) manners, for I 
 need not tell you that the most distinguishing feature of genuine 
 high-breeding is to shew the respect due to every one who has not 
 forfeited it, and not to imagine that you can elevate yourself by an 
 affected contempt of others : those who do this are the real vulgar. 
 
 " Having thus taken measure both of the lady of the house, and 
 my fellow-guests, I gave my whole attention to where alone it was 
 due, my forlorn friend, for such he seemed. After the ladies had 
 retired, therefore, I suited myself to the seeming wishes of Ihe young 
 men, who preserved their distance at the other end of the table, by 
 making no advance towards a junction with them. 
 
 " Whether from timidity or resentment, Bostock seemed to have 
 the same feeling, nor did he at all join in their conversation, though 
 it was entirely engrossed by their prospect of sport in his different 
 manors, of which they seemed to think him the mere trustee for 
 their use. We, however, did not refuse the alliance of the old 
 gouty Lord Gayhurst, who hobbled to us, glass in hand, so that 
 between the young honourables and our party, though that of their 
 host, like that between Lazarus and Dives, a great gulf seemed fixed. 
 Admirable proof of high civilization! 
 
 " The same boundary line that divided the plebeian husband and 
 his friends from his lady wife and her relations was marked out in 
 the drawing-room, after we had rejoined the latter at coffee. 
 Unwilling, I suppose, to interrupt the reminiscences of former days 
 between her husband and me, Lady Cherubina left us entirely to 
 ourselves, and this accommodating disposition being fully shared 
 by all her cousins, male and female, we took refuge on a sofa, 
 which seemed to have been left vacant for that purpose at the other 
 end of the room. 
 
 f Meantime my brother reverend, being equally excluded, seized 
 1. 11 
 
162 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 upon a splendid edition of the Conies Moraux, which lay open on 
 the table, though he understood not a word of French, and devoured 
 its fine plates for want of something to do. Bostock and I, therefore, 
 were again left alone, as in a crowd, though in his own house. 
 
 " You would have been annoyed at all this ; your blood would 
 have been up ; you would have complained of rudeness, and what 
 not. At your age, I might have done the same ; at mine, such things 
 are too properly appreciated to give uneasiness. There was no 
 rudeness intended, though there was most entire indifference ; and 
 what right had a rusty college tutor to expect any thing else? To be 
 sure, as her husband's friend, her husband's guest, and in her 
 husband's house, which house was only hers through him, she might 
 have shewn me a little more attention ; but as she shewed none at 
 all to her husband, and all her friends followed her example, of what 
 could I complain? 
 
 "In short, instead of a guest, I turned myself into a philosophic 
 spectator of what was exhibiting, and in truth, it let me into a 
 secret, or rather, confirmed me in a secret I had long suspected, 
 that poor Bostock, the wharfinger's son, had reaped no happiness 
 from his marriage with an earl's daughter." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OF THE ADVICE GIVEN BY MR. FOTHERGILL TO MR. BOSTOCK, AND HOW IT WAS 
 
 RELISHED. 
 
 Yet do I fear thy nature ; 
 It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 
 To take the readiest way. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Macbeth. 
 
 u The evening," continued Fothergill's memoir, " now drew to 
 a conclusion. The total absorption of his guests by Lady Cherubina, 
 or by one another, to his own utter exclusion, was not less disgust- 
 ing than remarkable. On one or two occasions he advanced from 
 his sofa to the favoured circle, but soon returned, for nobody spoke 
 to him, or if he spoke himself, nobody listened. He had no key 
 to their mystifications 5 he had not, as Labruyere says, e leurs 
 usages, leur jargon, et leurs mots a rire" They seemed to be 
 engaged in the mysteries of the Bona Dea, and when he ap- 
 proached, looked upon him as profane. 
 
 u Once, when he only spoke to propose to the young lord, Lord 
 Gayhursl's son, to shew him a particular beat the next day, where 
 the game promised to be plentiful, he was cut short by the youthful 
 aristocrat's coldly thanking him, but begging he would not trouble 
 himself, as he had himself already settled it all with the keepers. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 163 
 
 "Bostock returned lo his couch evidently hurt; and as I was 
 shocked with this insolence, it was a relief to me, as well as to 
 him, when we all retired for the night. 
 
 • 4 c It is inconceivable how I felt for him under these mortifications. 
 I thought of them all night, indignant at his wife for allowing, if 
 she did not promote them, and at himself for submitting to them 
 as he did. 1 wished, nay thought, lo expostulate with him but 
 not only I feared the thing was gone too far to be remedied, but T 
 had no right to meddle, and I dreaded the character of a meddler. 
 
 "The next day, however, without incurring this reproach, he 
 of his own motion opened the whole subject, and gave me ample 
 opportunity to tell him what I had observed, and what I thought ; 
 for he very frankly asked my advice upon his case, I saw after 
 breakfast that he endeavoured to get me alone ; a thing by no means 
 difficult, with the disposition which all his guests seemed to have 
 to indulge us 5 so when he proposed to shew me a temple he had 
 built at the end of a long shrubbery walk, no one interposed to 
 prevent our being a tete-a-tete. 
 
 " In our way, Bostock fairly confessed the uneasiness of his si- 
 tuation, which he feared was too obvious to have escaped me. He 
 said this in a low tone, interrupted every minute by examining 
 whether any one was within ear-shot : but having now entered the 
 iemple and locked the door, he grew bolder, looking, however, 
 again up and down the walk which the windows commanded, to 
 see that the coast was clear. He then began his meditated confidence 
 pretty nearly as follows : — 
 
 c< 4 Yes, my good friend, you must have seen, without any con- 
 fession of mine, that I am in the happy stale of not being master of 
 my own house- As for the company by whom I am inundated and 
 devoured, they are out of the question ; I am scarcely recognised 
 by them as more, if so much, as Lady Cherubina's major domo; 
 and as lo being her husband, it seems out of their thoughts, as well 
 it may, since it never seems to be in those of Lady Cherubina her- 
 self. These guests, then, (often twenty in number), being first, se- 
 cond, or third cousins, or very intimate and dear friends of my 
 lady, think they do me honour enough in passing the shooting 
 season, or riding my horses for me af'er the hounds 5 for which 
 they djo allow me to sit at the head of my own table, though they 
 scarcely think me worth speaking to when there. Yet while they 
 eat my venison and drink my claret, they wonder that Lady Cheru- 
 bina, with her fortune {her fortune, mind you), should not have a 
 more regular supply of turtle, such as Sir John Pamper always has 
 in Leicestershire. 
 
 " 'AH this time to address me as master of the house, or to sup- 
 pose we have any common topics of conversation, never seems to 
 enter iheir contemplation. 
 
164 DE CLIFFORD', 
 
 " i So much for my guests,' continued he, ' which I should not 
 much mind, but that their example contaminates even my servants, 
 none of whom, except the helpers in the stables, and what they call 
 the odd men in the yards, condescend to take orders from me. It 
 was but yesterday that I told the butler I would not allow claret in 
 the steward's room, and the fellow, instead of obeying, had the im- 
 pudence to say, "Very well, Sir, I will consult Lady Cherubina 
 about it." As to my lady's maid, and a housekeeper she brought 
 with her from Brandon, before them I dare not say my soul 's my 
 own.' 
 
 44 'AH this astonishes me,' said I, 'particularly this last ; for 
 whatever thraldom you may be in, with a wife whom your love 
 alone might make you unwilling to oppose, to be afraid of these 
 menials—; your own menials, too — is beyond my comprehension.' 
 
 " 4 Perhaps so,' replied he, 4 but be assured in their opinion /am 
 a mere upstart. Their talk is all of Brandon Hall, and the nobility 
 who lived there for ages, before canals, and wharfs, and barges 
 were known. My lord, his lordship, and my lady and her ladyship, 
 are never off their tongues 5 not from any particular respect for 
 them, but from very great respect for themselves, since every time 
 they give them their titles they elevate their own dignity. It was 
 but the other day, having occasion to look at something in the house- 
 keeper's-room, the lady president there, with fury on her brow, 
 began to talk at me 5 telling me in terms, that neither Lord Brandon, 
 nor his father before him, demeaned himself so as to come into her 
 apartment.' 
 
 t,< 4 Why did you not discharge her instantly? ' asked I. 
 
 44 4 Alas ! 5 said he, k you know not what it is to be married, not 
 merely to a person whom you love, but to one who, being so much 
 superior to you in rank and family, feels both her superior conse- 
 quence, and how much she has let herself down in joining her fate 
 to yours. To discharge therefore an old, though insolent, servant, 
 attached to her family before she was born, would baffle even your 
 resolution to accomplish, and is, in fact, impossible.' 
 
 4 4 4 1 see not why,' said I, 4 if the case required it.' 
 
 4 4 4 It would occasion a breach,' returned he, 4 and expose me to 
 open reproaches, and perpetual innuendoes, the last more difficult 
 to bear than the first, though both most annoying to my peace.' 
 
 u 4 You have then experienced Ihese innuendoes?' 
 
 4 4 4 My dear friend,' said he, 4 there is no disguising the tru(h ; 
 indeed, to reveal it, and ask your counsel upon it, was one of my 
 great objects in begging you to come to see me. It was pretty 
 obvious to me, when I married Lady Cherubina, that I was taken 
 upon sufferance, at least by her family 5 and though I believe I 
 possessed her affection at first, and she seemed grateful for the 
 absolute dominion I gave her over myself and fortune, I soon found 
 
OR , THE CONSTANT MAN. 165 
 
 thai her consciousness of her cloth of gold was incompatible with 
 any respect for my cloth of frieze. But alas ! this is by no means 
 the worst.' 
 
 "He then, in increased agitation, with deep sighs, and even 
 tears, after much hesitation, whispered in my ear, though no one 
 was near us — 
 
 44 ' You will scarcely believe it, but she will not now allow me to 
 enter her boudoir.' 
 
 " ' Good Heavens ! ' exclaimed I, 'for what reason ?' 
 
 444 Why, she had observed, she said, that nothing deadened the 
 pleasure which married people take in one another's company so 
 much as loo frequent and too long interviews, in the power of 
 either to command at pleasure 5 that it was the height of vulgarity, 
 to be always running after one another, and allow no place to be 
 sacred for mutual intrusion 5 and that, from girlhood, she had 
 always been accustomed to have an apartment so entirely her own, 
 that her falher, when alive, and afterwards her brother, had always 
 refrained from breaking in upon her retirement. She hoped, there- 
 fore, I would not be offended if she requested to be allowed the 
 same privilege, notwithstanding our nearer connection. 4 It leaves 
 my mind,' she said, 4 a power of expanding itself with a freedom 
 upon whatever engages me, for which I am always the belter ; and 
 then you know,' she added, 4 our meetings after these little absences 
 in solitude are always the pleasanter.' 
 
 ' 1 4 Though I own I did not much relish the proposal, and thought 
 it was not exactly the custom of married people, or that there was 
 any vulgarity in a husband and wife wishing to be together, yet she 
 talked of the matter so prettily, and made the proposal with so 
 much sentiment and delicacy, that I could not help admiring her. 1 
 
 44 4 You assented, of course? ' said I. 
 
 4 4 4 Why what could I do? I did not like to be held up to her 
 aristocratic relations as a vulgar husband, and they, as well as she, 
 assured me that what was proposed was always the custom in very 
 high families 5 that the higher the parties, the more their indepen- 
 dence of one another, and that nothing so much denoted superior 
 quality and fashion as this domestic rule. I trust, therefore, you 
 do not blame me? 1 
 
 44 1 assured him I pitied more than blamed him, and hoped for 
 better things. 
 
 44 He said he hoped so too, but found he had been doing so for 
 twelve months in vain $ in short, 4 She treats me,' said he, 4 like a 
 vassal. She has already become indifferent to my wishes and plans 
 of domestic comfort, in the enjoyment of her society upon a more 
 retired scale than suits her taste. She is, as you see, of a very supe- 
 rior mould, and commanding though cold temperament; which, 
 added to an internal contempt for my mean origin, leads her perpe- 
 
166 DE CLIFFORD ] 
 
 tuaily abroad, dispensing with me as a companion 5 or if. and when- 
 ever, at home, she requires to be surrounded by her whole clan, 
 who al! look up to her, and down upon me, though fond enough 
 of the good quarters they always find provided for them.' 
 
 " 1 Neiiher my fortune nor my sense of independence will stand 
 this, and yet I am so wanting in true spirit that I know not how to 
 break from under it. Alas I every way your caution as to unequal 
 marriages is now brought home to me. Lady Cherubina herself is 
 not the wife 1 thought she would be, or whom I ought to have 
 chosen 5 and as to her cousins and dear friends, they remind me of 
 Penelope's suitors. But her ladyship, unfortunately, is no more 
 Penelope than I Ulysses.' 
 
 -"Meantime,' added he, ' I have not a friend in the world to open 
 myself to but you, and I hailed your arrival as that of an ally, who 
 would at least give me good counsel, if he could not actually deli- 
 ver me.' 
 
 " ' It were easier,' I replied, seeing him pause, 4 to give advice, 
 than to take it. And I could and would give it but for one objection, 
 strong, perhaps insuperable/ 
 
 " 4 At least lei me know it.' 
 
 " 'Yourself. For with Lady Macbeth, of her husband, I may say. 
 
 ' I fear thy nature ; 
 It is too full 0' the milk of human kindness, 
 To take the nearest way.' 
 
 u 4 And what is that way ? ' asked he. 
 
 " 'Discharge these saucy menials, whether your own or Lady 
 Cherubina's. I would almost say discharge Lady Cherubina herself, 
 rather than live in such disgraceful thraldom.' 
 
 "This, and the warmth with which I said it, had an effect not 
 unexpected on my too easy friend. He started, turned pale, and 
 exclaimed, ' You are too bold ; you know not what you say/ 
 
 4 4 4 1 know it so perfectly,' said I, 4 that nothing short of being 
 prepared and ready to go the whole length of it will ever release 
 you from your chains.' 
 
 44 'Perhaps,' rejoined he— 4 perhaps (I am not sure) I might 
 screw myself up to the dismissal of servants, who think they have 
 only a mistress, not a master. Perhaps I might even be able to 
 close my doors 00 these suitors, as I call them, who presume to 
 despise me— but Lady Cherubina! Impossible! Nay, I know not 
 what you mean by the rash word you have used.' 
 
 4 4 4 You may suppose,' replied I, ' that by discharging (begging 
 tier's and your pardon for the phrase), I could not intend the same 
 thing as in regard to your other tormentors ; but I did mean that 
 you ought to be prepared to meet and brave She utmost' resentment 
 she could show, if. after an 'appeal io her reason, she is so much 
 devoted to family consequence, and so little to duty, as to deny you 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 167 
 
 your just rights. I suppose,' added I, 4 it is her pride only you 
 have to contend with, not her tenderness. No tears-, no fainlings 5 
 no complaints of tyranny on your part.' 
 
 4 4 4 Little chance of it,' said he, smiling rather bitterly at the thought . 
 
 44 4 Then if necessary, be as proud as herself. Nature and the 
 law place the staff in your hands \ do not throw it away.' 
 
 4 4 4 What if she should leave me?' asked he. 
 
 4 4 4 Let her ! She will soon return. At any rale it is better than 
 to live with her and be trampled upon by the suitors. By the way, 
 an excellent comparison that of yours.' 
 
 44 He was silent, as if revolving what I had advised, and at last 
 said he would think of it - y but added, shaking his head, 
 
 " Periculosee plenum opus aleae tractas '." 
 
 44 1 agreed, and only repeated, 4 be firm, and all will be well.' 
 4 4 4 God send it,' said he, and unlocking the door, we concluded 
 our conference. 
 
 44 The picture I have given of the first day I passed with poor 
 Bostock was so exact a prototype of all the rest, that I need not de- 
 scribe another. We had a few more consultations, but without 
 coming to any determination, and he always pleaded, not unreason- 
 ably, that while the cousins were on the spot, there was no possi- 
 bility of beginning the reform. Meantime the slight went on ; lady 
 Cherubina was occupied by any thing but her husband 5 the guests 
 had it all their own way 5 and, seeing little opportunity of my doing 
 any good to my friend, who seemed more and more a cypher in 
 his own house, I gladly shortened my stay at Beaumanoir to visit 
 Sedley, as I had promised." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 OF ANOTHER SPECIES OF MESALLIANCE.' — STORY OF MR. SEDLEY. 
 
 Reputation is an idle and most false imposition • oft got without merit, 
 and lost without deserving.— Shakspeare.^-0//i6/ , /o. 
 
 44 1 have already," continued Fothergill's M.S., 44 in what I 
 have said of my accomplished friend Sedley, given some insight 
 into his character, which in fact, when I first knew him, and for 
 some time after he quitted me, was one entirely of refinement. He 
 cultivated elegance in every shape, whether in literature or works 
 of art; of which his library, his house, furniture, and household, 
 
 1 "A labour vast, 
 Doubtful the dye and dire the cast." 
 
 Frazer's Horace, 
 
168 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 and particularly his gardens, for which he had a great taste, gave 
 proof. He was always full of animation ; had much romance, and 
 a thorough disinterestedness. He was at the same time fastidious to 
 a fault, particularly in regard to women, and from a disgust at 
 what he called the heartless elegance of higher people (a great mis- 
 take), thought he had the best chance of finding the companion he 
 wanted in the simplicities which he expected to meet with in a 
 lower station. 
 
 " True to this principle, he married a young person of neither 
 birth nor fortune $ on the contrary, an absolute dependant, but 
 whom he described to me as of exquisite beauty, modesty, and feel- 
 ing. She was in fact the humble friend of one of his high relations, 
 who needed her as a companion, and with whom he often saw her. 
 
 " ' She is not so cultivated,' said he to me, ' as I could wish, but 
 no matter 5 she loves me, and will love me the better for making 
 her so. There is a natural and simple elegance about her, with 
 which a husband may do any thing. Her family are, I am afraid, 
 very low. But quimporte? I marry her, not her family.' 
 
 " I had nothing to answer to all this, but sincerely to wish him 
 happy. 
 
 u For four years I heard very little of Sedley ; and having been 
 often invited, resolved, on leaving Beaumanoir, to pass a few days 
 with him at Sedley House. There at least I should be sure of not 
 encountering the humiliating exhibition of a man of worth and 
 opulence, like Bostock, succumbing to mere pride and fashion, 
 and afraid to consider himself the master of his own house. Ac- 
 cordingly, I look rather an anxious leave of Bostock,' — who how- 
 ever, was hopeful enough of himself to promise to write to me 
 the result of his resolutions, — and I crossed the country to take 
 Sedley by surprise. 
 
 " On driving up to the door I was surprised myself; for I was 
 struck with the air of discomfort which every thing seemed to 
 exhibit. The court-yard was full of nettles ; the steps of an other- 
 wise handsome portico were disjointed 5 and some of the windows 
 broken. At the latter, too, 1 observed at least half-a-dozen heads, 
 some of children, some adults, male and female, but all staring with 
 vulgar curiosity, as if they had never seen the arrival of a visitor 
 before. 
 
 " The door was opened, not by a footman (though Sedley had 
 always been remarkable for clean, good-looking men servants), but 
 by an absolute draggled, dirty maid. 
 
 " But what surprised me still more, when I alighted and got 
 within the passage, was to hear a voice, attempting certainly to 
 whisper, but naturally too coarse to succeed, desiring Hannah 
 (whoever she was) to pull the duster out of the window. 
 
 " This was explained to me on entering the room, by perceiving 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 169 
 
 that a duster, or napkin, had been thrust into the fissure of one of 
 the panes of glass which had been broken. The voice it seems had 
 proceeded from a tall, fat, massive-looking dame, with a red face, 
 between forty and fifty years old. She was in a dingy gown and 
 coarse apron, apparently the mother of five or six young people in 
 the room with her, one of them a baby in her arms 5 two of them 
 grown-up girls, not over clean 5 the others, children, who retreating 
 round her, and laying hold of her gown, stared at me with their 
 fingers in their mouths, shewing little modesty, but much mau- 
 vaise honte. 
 
 ." Seeing no signs of either my friend or his pretty wife, I set 
 down the portly female for the housekeeper, and the children as 
 her's, though how they all came to be the inhabitants of a handsome 
 reception-room, I could not make out. I was soon satisfied on that 
 head ; for the supposed housekeeper, advancing to do the honours 
 of the room, told me at once that she was Mrs. Snaggs 5 that she was 
 Mrs. Sedley's mother, and that she was sorry Mr. and Mrs. Sedley 
 were not at home, for they had gone out 'to take a hairing in their 
 little chay.' 
 
 " I bowed my thanks for the information, to which she imme- 
 diately added, { All these here children are my daughter's, for she 
 has one every year, and this baby (dancing it till she grew very hoi) 
 is the youngest.' She then added, 'but these two tall girls be my 
 own.' 
 
 " She then made many excuses for the door being opened, as 
 she said, ' by one of the low maids of the house, not even by the 
 lady's maid, which would have been better, but that both she and 
 the butler and footman had been sent out on some business, and as 
 for the boy, who was under the footman, he was never to be found, 
 as indeed was always the case with them boys.' 
 
 " I again bowed my compliments for all this intelligence, but, 
 in truth, could say little in commendation of what I saw, whether 
 of my friend's, or her own progeny, from the specimen exhibited 
 by their manners or appearance; nor was I profoundly struck by 
 Mrs. Snaggs herself. I was rather, therefore, relieved when she 
 said to the children, £ Come, dears, it is your dinner-time, and the 
 gentleman will excuse us \ ' then, asking me if I would not have a 
 bit of summut for lunch, which I declined, she left me, very little 
 offended at her want of ceremony, as she called it, in leaving me by 
 myself. 
 
 " My astonishment at all this may be imagined, as Sedley, I 
 recollected, in announcing his marriage, had. told me his wife 
 amply made up for being only in what he called a middling condi- 
 tion of life, by great softness of manners, excellent understanding, 
 and elegance of person. She could not at least, I supposed, resem- 
 ble her family in any of these respects. This was to be decided 
 
170 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 hereafter, and to amuse myself til! my friend should return from his 
 hairing, I wandered out of doors. 
 
 " What I saw there did not give me much notion of his taste for 
 elegant gardening, about which I knew he had formerly been en- 
 thusiastic 5 forming himself upon Walpole and De Lisle. I expected, 
 therefore, when I sought and found the garden, to see, at least, 
 well-kept beds of flowers, and well-pruned trees. The flowers and 
 the trees were there, but any thing but well kept. Moreover, my 
 progress in the principal walks was impeded by lines, which crossed 
 one another in various angles, on which were hung to dry whole 
 regiments of the family linen. This entirely put to flight all notion 
 of the elegance which I expected to find. 
 
 "'This is wonderful,' said I to myself; 4 some metamorphosis 
 must have taken place in friend Sedley, since he used to talk so feel- 
 ingly on the beauties of a garden.' Further research was, however, 
 put an end to by hearing his voice calling me by name, for the 
 clothes-lines interrupted the sight. 
 
 " Though heartily glad to see me, he was shocked and abashed 
 in the midst of his gladness. He reddened, and seemed even mor- 
 tified — was certainly much disconcerted. 
 
 44 4 This is really too bad,' said he, after shaking hands. 4 You 
 owe this to my good mother-in-law 5 really, a respectable woman 
 in her way, but who will suffer nobody to have a will of their own 
 in any thing resembling the economy of a menage, and particu- 
 larly of a great wash. I had strictly forbidden this appropriation of 
 my garden to a drying-ground, yet she has taken advantage of my 
 absence for only two hours to order fchis nuisance to be committed. 
 I hope you will excuse it.' 
 
 " He seemed so discomfited with what had happened, that he 
 could hardly reply to my inquiries after himself and wife, and seeing 
 two maids coming down the walk with fresh clothes, absolutely 
 stormed at them. In vain they pleaded that the hanging out was 
 by Mrs. Snaggs's orders. 4 1 have repeatedly told you,' cried he 
 (perhaps, forgetting me for the moment), 4 not to obey Mrs. Snaggs, 
 particularly in this, and if it happens again I will discharge you.' 
 
 44 He said this so angrily, that it surprised me, for he was a man 
 of great natural suavity. He himself seemed sorry, or rather ashamed 
 of his own warmth before a visitor, though that visitor was an old 
 friend, and began to make apologies, saying, how vexatious it was 
 to be so thwarted. 4 However,' added he, 4 as Mrs. Sedley's mother, 
 she seems to have a sort of right to manage these little matters for 
 her, and, indeed, saves her a great deal of trouble by her attention 
 to the children, in nursing and instructing them.' 
 
 44 The word instructing did not pass unnoticed in my own mind, 
 from the specimen she had given me of her qualifications that way ; 
 but I did not ihink it right to make any remark, and hastened to be 
 
OR, THii CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 171 
 
 introduced to Mrs. Sedley, of whom, from his accounts, and his 
 having been induced from her merit so to elevate her from medio- 
 crity, Fliad formed the most brilliant expectations. 
 
 " Nor, as to her looks, or at least her face, was 1 altogether dis- 
 appointed. It was pf the very finest while and red, leint de lis et de 
 rose, with dove-like eyes, but little animation ; which, considering 
 his love for it, surprised me. Her features were all regular, but 
 none of them spoke; her cheek seemed silky soft, but no dimple : 
 her lips absolute coral, but no smile. So much for her face, which, 
 if it shewed tranquillity, it was the tranquillity of apathy. Then, as 
 to her person, which Sedley had so praised for its elegance, — if that 
 had ever existed, it was gone ; perhaps, for a reason which her 
 mother's account of her annual fecundity might supply. Certain it, 
 is, that being a nurse, and, as such, wisely discarding all restraint 
 from dress, though not two-and-lwenty, she was any thing but a 
 nymph. 
 
 ' 6 I expected to be made amends by something like softness and 
 grace of manner. But, though in this respect it was the reverse of 
 the commanding boldness of Lady Cherubina, and there was no 
 affectation, a dead and languid expression of the usual phrases of 
 welcome was all I could obtain. She had none of the coarse loud- 
 ness of her mother ;butl thought I could have excused a little even 
 of that, could it have diminished the Mrs. Shandy qualities which 
 seemed to belong to her. Upon the whole, I did not think the in- 
 convenience of having such companions as I had already made ac- 
 quaintance with was compensated to my friend by the charms of his 
 wife. But this en passant, for as yet it was early to judge, and 
 besides, it was his affair, not mine. 
 
 "I perceived that my friend was earnestly, perhaps anxiously, 
 watching to see if he could discover in my countenance the impres- 
 sion made upon me by a wife whom he had so praised, and for 
 whom I afterwards found he had almost renounced Use world, cer- 
 tainly the higher circles of it. For he was now, as I soon perceived, 
 surrounded and absorbed by that wife's relations, who by no means 
 neglected the privileges given them by the connection. The two tall 
 girls, his sisters-in-law, whom I had first seen, now returned with 
 their red-faced mother, their cheeks not yet quite delivered from 
 the mouthfuls of pigeon-pie which they had been cramming : I 
 may use the word, for their large limbs and puffed-out figures de- 
 noted its usual effects. They were, at least, desirous that their sister 
 should share her own good things, for they pressed her to do as 
 they had been doing ; saying, in the broadest Yorkshire, ' that the 
 poy was pure good.' 
 
 u Mrs. Sedley had good tasie enough to feel this, and I saw was 
 disconcerted, but her husband seemed distress itself at the ebulli- 
 tion. He blushed up .to the &M& turned to the window, whose 
 
172 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 broken panes did not console him, and, as a diversion, began se- 
 riously to scold Mrs. Snaggs for allowing the children to play trap- 
 ball within doors. ' There can be neither comfort nor* neatness,' 
 said he, 'where there are broken windows; but thus it is, every 
 day, spite of all I can do.' He said this with angry looks— indeed, 
 quite out of temper— in which he seemed to have undergone a 
 change since I had seen him $ nor was he softened by the reply 
 of Mrs. Snaggs, — who seemed one of those who, to use her own 
 expressions, always gave toothers as good as they brought. « Why, 
 dear me,' cried she, not recollecting, or not caring for my pre- 
 sence, ' what's the matter with the man? What odds does it make, 
 when you can so well afTord to pay your bills? But I declare there 
 is no doing any thing right 5 always scold, scold, scold ! Ah ! it was 
 not so when you first married Lelty.' 
 
 "My friend was now utterly confounded. He dared not look at 
 me, though he looked most angrily at his wife, as if reproaching 
 her with her mother's vulgarity. This frightened poor, gentle Mrs. 
 Sedley, who, with a quivering lip and trembling voice, whispered, 
 rather than exclaimed, ' Oh, Mr. Sedley, do not frown so 5 you know 
 it always kills me to see you frown 5 but you are always so angry.' 
 
 "At this she threw herself back in her chair, and covered her 
 face with her hands. He immediately flew to her, saying, 'My 
 dearest creature, I am not angry withjow.' 
 
 " 4 Oh ! but you are with mamma, and that is worse,' said she ; 
 and she began to sob, which distressed him still more. 
 
 " Perceiving that there was an actual scene preparing, and pity- 
 ing his confusion, which was very evident, I had nothing left for 
 it but to remove myself from being a spectator of the struggle, and 
 fairly decamped, walking into the court, until my friend, either as 
 victor or defeated, should join me and explain these strange oc- 
 currences. 
 
 " In a few minutes he came out, and very frankly said, 4 There ; 
 you have discovered in five minutes what I have endeavoured to 
 conceal from you for nearly five years 5 I mean, how much, between 
 my wife's tenderness and her mother's vulgarity (for I must speak 
 out) I am worried out of my life with contending feelings. Poor Le- 
 tilia is so soft and bending before me, calling herself always my 
 protegee, and me her benefactor, which I cannot get her to leave 
 off—she is so conscious of her obligations to me, as she ingenuously 
 confesses, in marrying her, thai it is impossible to assert one's self, 
 even against her mother's coarse and usurping insolence, without 
 being cut to the soul. I am not, as you see, wife-ridden ; but I own, 
 what is worse, I am, if I may so say, mother-in-law-ridden and 
 wife-lied. Certainly, it is a less evil to be a downright slave than to 
 have one's hands bound so as to be forced to a daily submission to 
 officious impertinence and unceasing vulgarity.' 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 173 
 
 " This speech let me at once into my poor friend s situation, cer- 
 tainly melancholy, if not downright unhappy. To say nothing of 
 his wife, whom he evidently still loved, but who did not to me, by 
 any means, answer the description he had given of her, it was pal- 
 pable that he was hourly made miserable by the vulgar minds and 
 coarse manners of the relations by whom he was surrounded, and 
 who stuck to him, as he observed, like leeches. ' I could no more 
 get rid of them,' said he with a sigh, 4 than I could gel rid of ver- 
 min, except by destroying them $ and this,' he added, with still 
 more distress, 4 would destroy my wife.' 
 
 44 I was horrified with this picture of a fine mind and generous 
 heart, disappointed in all its fair expectations of happiness from 
 congeniality of diposition and manners, and I saw in it only an- 
 other proof of the evils attendant upon a mesalliance. I now 
 plainly perceived one reason, at least, why he had withdrawn from 
 those elegant circles to which he had been accustomed, and shut 
 himself up with such inferior beings. I had attributed it to a ro- 
 mantic love and admiration for his wife. I found it was because 
 he was ashamed of her connections, from whom he could not 
 escape. They lived with him in the country, and took lod- 
 gings near in town, and every hint he gave of a wish to be de- 
 livered from them, while it produced in Mrs. Sedley the most 
 entire devotion to his will, produced also a proof that she thought 
 herself a victim sacrificed to his pleasure. Tears and fits followed 
 fast upon one another, and as she was always either in the family- 
 way, or a nurse, the consequences would have been dreadful. His 
 very love, therefore, stood most in the way of his wishes 5 and he 
 was thus as much enthralled by the loo great softness and morbid 
 sensibility of his protegee wife, as poor Bostock was by his haughty 
 mistress. 
 
 44 This thraldom of his I had farther occasion to observe, in the 
 shocks which his good taste were doomed perpetually to suffer 
 from the companions to whose society he was condemned. At our 
 breakfast, his mother-in-law would have called forth Lord Ogleby's 
 fearful and emphatic exclamation, 4 Hot rolls and butter in July ! ' 
 such was her love for them, and such Ihe quantity she laid in. 
 At dinner, her ponderous form and heated complexion were not 
 softened by a costly, thick crimson velvet dress, in the dog-days. 
 A very large and coarse neck, though made very fine, was not 
 fined down by a chain of massive mock cameos, seemingly of 
 Derbyshire spar. This, and the exertion of eating and carving, oc- 
 casioned her to suffer profusely, for which there was a perpetual 
 recourse to her handkerchief — nay, as she herself told us, she 
 often required two. Sedley groaned outright, but his genlle lady 
 only exclaimed 4 poor mamma!' 
 
 a The two young ladies, his sislers-in-law, seemed so occupied 
 
174 BE CLIFFORD 
 
 with the pleasures and labours of eating, (sometimes sucking their 
 fingers, and sometimes the inside of their cheeks, to give a favourite 
 morsel an additional zest) that they spoke little; which so far was 
 an advantage, thai it lessened the sources of Sedley's disgust. But 
 who shall (ell his consternation when they laded gravy into their 
 mouths with their knives ! 
 
 " I must not omit an accession which the company had received 
 at our first dinner, in the person of Mr. Stubbington Snaggs, 
 brother of the hostess, a strong-built, ponderous gentleman, with a 
 head very like a bull-dog, and who seemed to realize the repre- 
 sentation of the gormandizer in Wilkie's admirable picture of the 
 Rent-day^ — who, with a large bone slicking across his mouth, is 
 holding out his plate for more, before either plate or mouth is 
 empty. 
 
 u After dinner this gentleman confirmed his brother's mortifica- 
 tion by proving, from his discourse, that his inward sentiments 
 were as gross as his outward habits. My friend, therefore, seemed 
 relieved from a heavy burthen when, our wine being finished, he 
 asked me to escape with him into the garden. 
 
 " Here he recommenced the subject of the morning's complaint. 
 4 It is not,' said he, 1 that I love my wife less than when I married 
 her.' Here he hesitated, fearing perhaps that he had opened too 
 much, but went on, as if in parenthesis, — ' You see I still look 
 upon you as my counsellor and confessor, though no longer my 
 tutor.' I begged him always to consider me so, and as such to 
 believe me a friend heartily interested for his welfare. ' I trust, 
 however,' said I, 'that the prospect of happiness you anticipated 
 from Mrs. Sedley's attachment, and her capacity as well as wish to 
 cultivate her mind so as to be thoroughly your companion — I trust 
 that this balances all these drawbacks, which, I own, seem great, 
 but for which she at least is not to blame.' 
 
 u 'My dear friend,' said he, pressing my arm, 'I wish the 
 balance you talk of could exist \ but were my wife more what I 
 hoped to make her, and really all she wishes herself to be for my 
 sake, I doubt her's, I doubt anybody's power to make me content 
 with the purgatory in which I live. Nothing short of banishing 
 these low relations, and others whom you have not seen, whom, 
 to break with, would break her heart, could restore me to myself; 
 and the purchase, you see, would be too dear.' 
 
 " ' Mrs. Sedley, then,' said I, - has other relations! ' 
 
 UL 4 Alas! a second edition of brother and sisters, the very coun- 
 terparts of these ; and it is astonishing with what indefatigability 
 they relieve guard 5 so that my, house is never free from them, 
 or / from despair. It is hence that I am driven into banishment 
 from all my own society, among whom, as you must have seen, 
 whatever my wife may be, these people are absolutely not pre- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 175 
 
 sentable. But they even, in some degree, contaminate Lelilia her- 
 self, who, having nobody to please in the article of manners but 
 her husband, and being too sure (she thinks) of him, takes no pains 
 to correct a growing indolence in that respect, which blinds her 
 still more to the faults of her family. The good breeding she cer- 
 tainly once possessed, when with my cousin, Lady Lancaster, is 
 fast ebbing away, where there is nothing but its opposite to be 
 seen as an example for imitation. Her mother and sisters, naturally 
 slatterns, and more so from being totally uneducated, have nothing 
 to preserve them from sloth. Hence every thing they undertake is 
 neglected and goes to ruin, and Lelitia is becoming too like them 
 in this respect. Even to dress is now an exertion which fatigues 
 her ; and seeing no one but myself to participate in the pleasures 
 of mental cultivation, much less to kindle emulation, it is with pain 
 I see her gradually sinking, I will not say to a level with those 
 about her, (that would be too horrible), but into an indifference to 
 their manners, thoughts, and conversation. Believe me, I am far 
 from happy.' 
 
 " At this he gave a deep sigh, and veiled his face with his hand. 
 
 u £ Yet her gratitude, 1 said I, endeavouring to console him. 
 
 "'Ah! that gratitude,' cried he, interrupting me-, 'would I 
 could root the word from the vocabulary. It is that which causes 
 me more distress than almost all the rest. It comes too often for- 
 ward, not to make me think it takes the place of love. Had she been 
 my equal there would have been no place for it, and every little 
 attention, every fond caress would, for it must, have sprung from 
 tender attachment. But fo have purchased it, as it were — which 
 gratitude implies — -O ! the thought is unbearable.' 
 
 " He was evidently suffering under this suspicion, and I knew 
 not how to relieve him, as he alone could be the judge, if any one 
 could, of its truth. Every way the prospect was bad, nor was it 
 mended by any thing I saw during the week I staid with him. Mrs. 
 Snaggs and her daughters continued the pictures of reckless and 
 brazen vulgarity, and Mrs. Sedley, although not disgusting, and 
 comparatively polished, was evidently of so inferior a cast of mind 
 as to give me little or no notion of a companion for her cultivated 
 husband. 
 
 " I left them mournful at seeing so little hope of improvement in 
 their prospect. Nor did I find greater comfort in regard to my other 
 married friend, Bostock, in a letter I received from him on my ar- 
 rival at Oxford, telling me that all the suitors having taken their 
 leave, he had thought it best to put off the reforms he meditated 
 with Lady Cherubina till some other opportunity." 
 
176 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL 
 
 THE SUBJECT CONTINUED, IN WHICH SOMETHING OF THE EXCLUSIVES IS DISCUSSED. 
 
 Here my tutor's manuscript closed, and I regretted there was 
 no more of it 5 — for the narratives which I have set forth were only 
 some of several which had been drawn up by this observing man, 
 whose disposition and general practice, it seems, was to note down 
 any thing and every thing he met with remarkable in the characters 
 and conduct of men in their progress through life. 
 
 These notes he had formed into a volume, which he called his 
 book of human nature, and told me I should probably one day find 
 myself portrayed there in glowing colours, under the head of En- 
 thusiast. 
 
 Well! and why not? What great act, or great conception, but 
 owes its rise to enthusiasm? What youth of twenty ought ever to 
 be without it? To be sure, it is for the most part a plunging, pran- 
 cing steed, which sometimes throws his rider, and often gets him 
 into scrapes, from which he does not always recover; but after a 
 little training, and when got into the beaten road, he goes the belter 
 for it in the end. 
 
 Much as I respected Fothergill's judgment, particularly in the 
 philosophy of man, of which I had had excellent proofs, I was by 
 no means naturally inclined to take things on mere authority, where 
 I had any doubts of my own to be cleared; and I had many on this 
 very subject. I could not therefore help, on re-delivering his manu- 
 script, requesting a few explanations on the general question of un- 
 equal alliances What was or was not equality on the whole, and 
 not partial disproportions, ought, I thought, to be always settled 
 before we came to a general conclusion. 
 
 "You are right, 1 ' said he, "and I am far from being so dog- 
 matical as to refuse a full investigation of parts, in order to make 
 up our minds to a whole. In poor Bostock's case, the inequality 
 was not confined to birth and rank. If it had, 150,000/., liberal edu- 
 cation, and liberal manners, superior sense, and superior character, 
 would not only have balanced, but weighed down, a mere woman 
 of quality, though backed by a whole army of birth and fashion, 
 and all the weight of St. James's itself. 
 
 u But I fear the inequality here was in the minds and genius, 
 aggravating that of the rank of (he parties 5 and you will please to 
 observe my theory respects inequality of any and every kind, whe- 
 ther of years, temper, character, or education, and is not confined 
 to mere birth or fortune. In this instance, Lady Cherubina knew 
 all her advantages in resolution and vigour over her husband's 
 
OH, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 177 
 
 modesty, and had not generosity enough to abstain from using 
 them to the utmost. She was a Catherine ; had he been a Pelruchio, 
 the suitors would never have intruded, and the sister of a poor 
 earl, notwithstanding her coronet, might have condescended to 
 be happy to receive comfort and independence at the hand of a 
 plebeian. 
 
 "I have myself seen aristocrats, of both sexes, whose high 
 heads, have 'stoopt to the vale, 1 where pecuniary advantages, or 
 even a dinner, have been in question. They have reminded me of 
 the illustrious Hidalgo, Captain Chinchilla, in Gil Bias, ' d'une 
 taille gigantesque' (which I suppose Le Sage puts for pride), ' et 
 d'une maigreur extraordinaire,' which I suppose he puts for poverty. 
 This great personage, you know, though literally half starved, and 
 forced to shut himself up, that nobody might witness his dinner of 
 pumpkins and onions, forced the good-natured Santillanna to en- 
 treaties, at first, before he would partake of his dinner ; but in the 
 end, he came round very comfortably. ' II voulut d'abord faire des 
 facons: mais enfin il se rendit a mes instances. Apres quoi, deve- 
 nant insensiblement plus hardi, il m'aida de lui-mGme a rendre 
 mon plat net, et a vider ma bouteille.' 
 
 "Thus, as the captain felt his condescensions well repaid by ac- 
 cepting a dinner from the petit secretaire, so many a high dame 
 has kindly and graciously submitted to the disgrace of a shower of 
 gold, poured into her lap by some rich and strong-minded mer- 
 chant or manufacturer (who knew how to assert the privileges 
 which nature and the law gave him), without a thought of rebelling. 
 It is only where the submission is not gracious on the one side, or 
 the mind not strong on the other, that the leaven appears 5 for, 
 after all, leaven there always is, and it will sometimes shew itself, 
 though it may be kept from dangerous fermentation, by a decided 
 superiority of mind in the husband. Where that is uncontested, 
 the equilibrium is restored; but for one instance of this happy 
 balance, there are thousands of perpetual and unceasing struggles, 
 till poor love is frightened out of doors, never to return." 
 
 I was strongly impressed with this, but asked whether the ba- 
 lance might not be struck, even without supposing the inequality 
 of mind. " I mean," said I, " where the actual condition of the 
 parties is concerned, in respect to other points, besides rank or 
 fortune, — for example, as to age." 
 
 "That is a nice point," replied he, "nor perhaps has my ex- 
 perience yet settled it. But, though where the seniority is of the 
 man to the woman, the question has been determined different 
 ways, there can be no doubt, where it is on the side of the woman 
 to the man. I think it is Rousseau who says, that the love of a wife 
 to her husband has always the best chance of happiness when it 
 partakes in some degree of that of a daughter to a father. Here, 
 i. 12 
 
178 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 therefore, a disparity of age does not necessarily infer the mischiefs 
 of a mesalliance i but no instance has ever occurred to my obser- 
 vation, in which the union of a young husband with an old wife 
 has not made both parties ridiculous. Prudence, however, is a great 
 leveller." 
 I asked what that meant. 
 
 "You have it," said he, "in the late union, by which the fair 
 Medowes consoled herself for your friend Hastings' loss, when she 
 espoused the old and worn-out owner of Belvidere. He is fifty 
 years older than she-, so far they are mis-allied. But the inequality 
 is made up to her by being mistress of Belvidere, which she wanted, 
 but could not have without giving up her person; and her want of 
 love is made up to him by the possession of that person, which is 
 all he wanted on his part. Thus the balance is struck, and each is 
 satisfied." 
 
 " Such alliances," I remarked, " are not worth a thought-, both 
 parties deserved to be miserable-, but I am glad, where the parties 
 are both made for better things, to think I perceive that even in 
 your mind it is possible that a mesalliance as to rank may not be 
 unhappy." 
 
 "Possible," returned he, "but not probable; for even where 
 the lady (for we are here talking only of the lady being the superior) 
 is devoted to her husband, it is generally at the expense of her en- 
 joyment of her family; and though conjugal love, as well as duty 
 and disposition, may suppress all outward complaints, there is yet 
 the secret grief and inward melancholy, the silent tear and wasted 
 mind, more difficult for a generous husband to bear than dogged 
 sullenness, or downright revolt." 
 
 " Do you know instances of this?" asked I. 
 
 " One, certainly," said he; " for you know mine is a practical, 
 not a theoretical, philosophy. I had once a friend, indeed a Sed- 
 bergh schoolfellow. He was not so well born as you, nor a pound 
 more rich; but with his hard Cumberland brain, patience, and la- 
 bour, he amassed a fortune at Liverpool, and with a fine person, and 
 open handsome countenance, he mastered the affections of a very 
 gentle and very high-born girl." 
 
 I grew agitated at this, and drew in my breath in expectation; 
 which he perceived, but told me not to flatter myself, for what he 
 had to say would do any thing but soothe my hopes. 
 
 " Their union," continued he, " was bitterly opposed by all her 
 family, who renounced her on its taking place. Her spirit and love 
 conjoined at first kept her up ; and she found in her husband what 
 she thought would for ever support her against such unreasonable 
 neglect. It was not so. The tender and delicate attentions of her 
 husband never relaxed ; he never changed, but she did. The slights 
 of her family drove her from their neighbourhood ; in which, much 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 1/9 
 
 to his inconvenience, she was indulged by her husband. They had 
 no children, and she was often left alone. In solitude she brooded, 
 she pined, and when her husband returned; after necessary ab- 
 sences, though always welcomed, it was always in tears. With tears 
 in his own eyes (manly tears!), he has often lamented this to me. 'I 
 shall lose her,' said he; 'she loves me still, and she struggles 
 against her feelings for my sake; but they still prevail, and will 
 break her heart; she wastes and is perishing before my eyes.' He 
 was loo good a prophet. After a slow and lengthened fever, with 
 no decrease, but increase of affection, she died in his arms." 
 
 Affected as I was by this account, I could not help asking whe- 
 ther this melancholy catastrophe might not have been the conse- 
 quence of any family opposition, on other grounds than that of 
 inequality of condition. 
 
 " It certainly might, 1 ' said Fothergill, " but such was the ground 
 here, and I give it you as it happened. It is therefore one more 
 support of my position on the mischiefs of inequality." 
 
 iC And yet," I continued (resolved to sift the subject to the bottom), 
 u do we not daily see what you perhaps call mesalliances, without 
 any such consequences? Merchants and sons of merchants, with no 
 blood, matching with the daughters of nobles and statesmen-, nobles 
 and statesmen matching with citizens, yet no difference of demeanor 
 on any occasion from what there would have been with the most 
 perfect equality." 
 
 "I doubt the no difference in all cases," returned Fothergill, 
 " though, for the most part, the reasons that induce consent to such 
 a connection, in the higher party, carry along with them the neces- 
 sity for civil conduct at least, as a natural consequence. But in the 
 few cases of this sort which we see, the inequality in one respect is 
 balanced by some redeeming advantage in another. Thus a mil- 
 lionnaire, who marries a duke's daughter if you will, — though his 
 grace, even if he wanted part of the million himself, would some- 
 times perhaps give himself airs which the merchant would not 
 like, — would never, if he had any pluck in him, submit to be ill- 
 treated*, and his security in this respect he would of course ascertain 
 beforehand. Sometimes, too, a very noble father-in-law might have 
 a very weak pericranium, and find it a good thing to be directed 
 by his cleverer son-in-law. A minister of state might even find his 
 account in an alliance with a moneyed aristocrat ; nay, in asso- 
 ciating him with himself in the ministry. In our mixed constitu- 
 tion, also, with such a mingling of democracy in Parliament, a man 
 of parliamentary influence, or parliamentary eminence, might laugh 
 at the highest peer who was a devotee of political ambition and 
 should presume to despise him. 
 
 f:\ But in all these cases you see inequality is only partial, and no 
 inequality on the whole. What is wanting in one point 4s made up 
 
180 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 by another ; hence the alliance is willingly formed • and once en- 
 tered upon, it would be foolish to disturb it with jealousies. And 
 yet for all this, where vanity, or the prejudices of high fashion or 
 high blood, are concerned, I doubt the cordiality of such alliances, 
 even where ever so necessary." 
 
 " Would not this," said I, " extend itself to friendships and in- 
 timacies? And yet, as well as in marriages, how often have we seen 
 the closest alliance between the most unequal conditions — brilliant 
 genius and high literary fame balancing all the advantages of the 
 proudest station, over humble birth, and original mediocrity of 
 pursuits. What an example of this do we find in the high friend- 
 ships formed by Pope with the greatest of both sexes ! What a 
 proof of it in the "Matt" and " Henry " of Prior and Bolingbroke! 
 but, above all, in the rise to the very pinnacle of glory in society 
 of an unequalled meteor now coursing through the heavens, though 
 only a player's son ! " 
 
 "You meari Sheridan," returned Fothergill smiling*, "and I 
 see you have well, and no more than rightly, examined the chances 
 of learning and genius to rank themselves with men of fashion, 
 statesmen, and even princes. Keep them before you by all means; 
 but do not let the few examples there are of this kind dazzle you 5 
 neither overrate the examples themselves, which, upon closer in- 
 vestigation, may not prove all they appear to be-, for how soon 
 was "Matt" abandoned by "Henry" when their common party 
 was ruined, and the inferior (Malt) was no longer necessary ! In- 
 stead of lamenting his death, or even commonly respecting his 
 memory, "Henry" quizzed "Matt" for his bad epitaph upon 
 himself. 
 
 " As to Pope, he had made himself too independent of the greai, 
 in point of fortune, for the inequalities in that respect to be felt, or 
 even almost to exist 5 so that his superiority in fame had no draw- 
 back. Besides, neither Pope nor Prior was married." 
 
 " Can that make any difference?" 
 
 " More, perhaps, than you are aware of; for a wife brings these 
 inequalities sooner to the test than any other touchstone. A duke, 
 or the most dandy member of White's, may not be above — nay, may 
 feel a sort of complacency in walking arm-in-arm with some very 
 brilliant genius of the age, although of common-place connections 5 
 his privilege of exclusion may even stand the awkwardness of being 
 visited by him in his box at the opera. But if the genius have a 
 wife, how will it fare with her? Will the duke, or the dandy, 
 submit to shew the same attentions to a lady whom nobody knows? 
 or if they do occasionally (to serve a turn), will their own wives or 
 daughters, because they bear wilh, nay, perhaps, condescend to be 
 civil to, the lion at their husband's dinner-table, be equally prompt 
 to receive the lioness in their own drawing-rooms? Assure yourself 
 
OR, TUB CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 181 
 
 this is far overstepping the rights of 4 men of learning and genius, 1 
 who, as far as their intimacies are concerned, are supposed to be 
 always in a state of celibacy, and to have no females belonging to 
 them.'' 
 
 I laughed at this sally, and was about to reply, but he had always 
 chapter and verse, and went on with an anecdote of a passage between 
 a certain great political peer (a friend of Lord Castleton) and an 
 eloquent member of his party, more celebrated for his abilities than 
 his family or station in life. 44 4 How can I shew you,' said the peer, 
 4 my admiration of your talents! your eloquence! or thank you 
 sufficiently for the services you render to your party?' 'To be 
 
 approved by such a friend is reward enough,' returned Mr, M >, 
 
 6 but if Mrs. M — ■ — might be allowed the honour of the protection 
 of the marchioness, it would be a great gratification.' The marquess 
 changed colour; shook his head with great solemnity, and, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders in a sort of despair, and a long-drawn 4 Ah — you 
 know, my dear friend,' observed he, 4 these things are the exclusive 
 province of the ladies, and husbands never interfere. It is the only 
 thing in which her ladyship never allows me any authority.' Mr. 
 
 M had nothing left for it but to submit, and follow, as before, 
 
 respectfully in the wake of the marquess." 
 
 44 This is a sorry picture," said I, 44 and would deter any man 
 of spirit from forming such an intimacy; but this, at least, cannot 
 apply to the illustrious author and senator (illustrious with all his 
 faults) whom I just now mentioned-, for both he and his wife, as I 
 have heard from Granville, had almost equal fascinations, and were 
 at the very head of fashionable life." 
 
 44 That," replied Fothergill, 44 is not quite correct as to her, 
 though she had all of what you properly have called fascination, to 
 which I, who know her, can bear witness. But I can tell you that 
 she, and her husband too, were not without their mortifications in 
 this very respect, particularly in the earlier stages of their progress 
 from very humble beginnings. Thus, when one of those dazzling 
 comedies, which first founded his reputation, had made all the 
 world mad for his acquaintance, and her uncommon beauty- 
 amounting to the angelic — and accomplishments, which threw 
 every other person's into shade, had almost equalled her with him 
 in attraction; still there was a doubt or hesitation as to their admis- 
 sion into the higher circles, in which it was some time before they 
 got a permanent footing. I have heard that the Duchess of Devon- 
 shire long hesitated as to the propriety of inviting to her house 
 4 two persons of such equivocal rank, as he and his wife were at 
 that time considered V 
 
 44 Although, therefore, they broke through the spell, (partial- 
 
 1 Moore's " Life of Sheridan.'' 
 
182 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 
 
 lady Sheridan himself, from his overpowering abilities and fame), 
 the lady, at least, does not seem to have rested her happiness upon 
 her reception in the high world. It, indeed, grew less and less 
 towards her decease, which has been affectingly described by one 
 of her friends who was near her. ' She left rings to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Leigh, and positively forbids any others being given on any pre- 
 tence, evidently precluding all her fine friends from this last 
 mark of her esteem and approbation. She had, poor thing, with 
 some justice, turned from them all in disgust, and, during her 
 illness, never mentioned them with regard or kindness 1 
 
 "Sheridan himself, indeed, soared to the highest pitch of both 
 fashionable and political society, and in some measure (but not 
 either uniformly or universally) carried his wife along with him 5 
 but it was parliamentary reputation, and consequent political in- 
 fluence, that enabled him to do this. For though his literary splen- 
 dour will be felt and remembered long after his political career 
 may be forgotten, yet I doubt, if he had been only a man of wit 
 and letters, however exquisite in both, if he (and still less his wife, 
 fascinating as she was), would have attained the place they did in 
 the aristocratic classes of the country a . 
 
 " I have heard," continued Fothergill, " upon authority, that 
 he (Sheridan ) was in the enjoyment of the proud consciousness of 
 having surmounted the disadvantages of birth and station, and 
 placed himself on a level with the highest and noblest of the land. 
 
 " This footing in the society of the great he could only have at- 
 tained by parliamentary eminence. As a mere writer, with all 
 his genius, he never would have been thus admitted, ad eundem, 
 among them. Their stiffness, coldness, and what I may call inve- 
 terate obstinacy in this respect ( I speak, however, only of the 
 English great), baffle all conjecture to comprehend it upon the 
 principles of common sense. For if, now and then, a little spark of 
 feeling, prompted by something like classic taste remaining still 
 from former youthful impressions, does arise towards a real genius, 
 who, perhaps, delights the world, it is all instantly repressed and 
 smothered by the drowsy inactivity of our aristocratic prejudices, 
 which, from either the obtuseness or jealousy of their possessors, 
 nothing can shake off. I remember one of these dull dignities at 
 Lord Gast1cton's,< — talking to him of a writer whom Lord Castlelon 
 patronized, and who had charmed all the literary world, — observ- 
 ing, with most pompous condescension, that there was no person 
 he so much wished to know. 'Very well,' said Lord Castleton, 
 4 nothing more easy, for he will think himself honoured by your 
 
 1 Moore,— 302. 
 
 H has been as soundly as pointedly observed, by Moore, that talents may lead to an 
 association wilh the great, but never to equality. They are passports through the well- 
 guarded frontier, but no title to naturalization within. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 183 
 
 acquaintance, and I will be glad to introduce him to your lordship.' 
 
 " The peer gave a cold bow, whether of acceptance or evasion 
 might be doubtful, but he never returned to the subject, or men - 
 tioned the poet again. 
 
 ■ What is remarkable," added Fothergill, u the gentleman 
 whom he so much wished more than any one to know had been 
 perfectly well known to him at college, but was passed by afterwards 
 in the world. 
 
 " Say what we will, therefore, for the sake of appearing Mectfi- 
 nases, by him who has not been born among the great, equality of 
 intercourse can only be achieved by politics. In that arena which 
 they look upon as their own, the legislature of the land, let a man 
 of genius, like Sheridan, but assert his supremacy, at once all these 
 barriers of reserve and pride give way, and he takes, by storm, a 
 station at their side, which a Shakspeare or a Newton would but 
 have enjoyed by courtesy 1 . It is only after death, when their fame 
 is consecrated by posterity, and the puny, temporary self conse- 
 quence of their higher contemporaries is forgotten, that the palm 
 of genius, learning, and philosophy becomes equal, and often su- 
 perior, to that adventitious one of birth and fortune, or even of 
 military or political celebrity. Who does not love the names of 
 Virgil and Horace more than those of their patrons, Meceenas, or 
 even Augustus, though master of the world? 1 ' 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 MY FELLOW STUDENTS. 
 
 This speech of yours hath moved me, 
 And shall perchance do good : but speak you on 
 You look as you had something more to say. 
 
 Shakspeare.— King Lear. 
 
 The lectures of my sagacious tutor in moral philosophy ( for such 
 I call the conversations in the chapter last recorded ) did me as 
 much, or more good than all the academical lore he instilled into 
 me; which was not a little. I began to think I profited by them. It 
 is certain such conversations, by alarming my self-love ( if self-re- 
 spect ought to be so called ), went far to correct much of that en- 
 thusiasm which Fothergill said belonged to me, and which so blinds 
 us all to the truth of things. I began in earnest ( for hitherto I had 
 only flattered myself that I did so ) to reflect upon the folly I had 
 been guilty of, in having for a moment thought that a gentleman- 
 
 Moore,— 485. 
 
184 
 
 BE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 farmer's son ( for with all my Norman blood, mixed and muddled 
 as it was in its descent, I was no more ), could presume to hope to 
 gain the affection of one so much above him as Bertha. Or if, with 
 the fond illusions with which love can beguile a youth of twenty, 
 I could in fancy think I might one day be beloved, what, short 
 of raving madness, could generate the notion that I could be ac- 
 cepted? 
 
 This, and the pictures set before me by Fothergill, of the mis- 
 chiefs usually attendant upon disproporlioned matches, began to 
 tell with me 5 and the absence, nay, total removal of Foljambe 
 from Oxford, to say nothing of the total rupture of our friendship, 
 contributed to leave my mind open to conviction. And thus for the 
 first time I listened to reason. 
 
 I could now, therefore, tread the walks of the place or lose my- 
 self in reverie upon a bench in Merton gardens, without hankering 
 after the motions of Bertha's brother, or the fear of overhearing 
 things revolting to my pride. 
 
 I began also to know and to be known. Fothergill, who was uni- 
 versally respected for his knowledge of the world as well as his 
 learning, and who acted like a father to me, procured me by his 
 influence a welcome into many academical families, whose female 
 members were by no means to be slighted, either on account of 
 their persons, manners, or cultivation. And though I could not but 
 remember the biting things which in his recklessness ( I fear I 
 might say insolence) Foljambe had indulged his satirical vein in 
 laying to their charge, the Foljambe who thus accused them, no 
 longer my friend, no longer possessed that weight with me which 
 made every word he uttered a law. 
 
 Exclusive of this, I was myself no longer a freshman, and was as 
 capable as resolved to judge in my own person. But though in so 
 judging I am bound to allow I found a few amiable and accom- 
 plished females, the die seemed cast against my feeling it. I found 
 many agremens in their society, but nothing of that touching ma- 
 gic which a finger held up by Mr. Hastings' daughter always 
 created. I studied their characters, and of some of them acknow- 
 ledged the beauty, but it was only when they were actually pre- 
 sent ; for I parted with them without regret, and saw them again 
 without interest. 
 
 I succeeded better with the men. With them, there was no con- 
 trast to their disadvantage 5 no tender recollections, no prejudices, 
 and of course none of the absorbing interests derived from sex. 
 Accordingly, my mind had free scope for all ils operations, when- 
 ever characters or objects worth notice presented themselves, and 
 under Fothergill's guidance of my own natural disposition in this re- 
 spect, 1 became, for my age, an intense observer of my fellow-men. 
 
 It must be owned, Oxford afforded much food for this sort of cu- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 185 
 
 riosily, and as my tutor's forte was knowledge of men, which he 
 inculcated fully as much as knowledge of books, the interest he 
 took in rny progress made me prosper. 
 
 It was as curious as pleasant to observe Folbergill, when be, as 
 his phrase was, got hold of a character, and set it up as a beacon to 
 warn his pupils ( if, as he used to say, they were worth warning ) , 
 against the various vices and weaknesses of young men, — in de- 
 tecting and ridiculing which no one went beyond him. The traits of 
 a few of their characters it might be amusing to mention, as well as 
 of my own, of which, he used to tell me, the vice was pride, and 
 the weakness jealousy, to say nothing of visionary romance. 
 
 One character was rather a favourite speculation of his, from 
 being, as he said, so perfect of its kind, though that kind was not 
 very perfect in itself. The name of the gentleman who owned this 
 character was Mr. Courtenay Waldegrave Shanks, the foolish son 
 of a foolish father, who thought the two first names, which were 
 baptismal, and for which there was no earthly pretence, might make 
 up for the vulgarity of the last. 
 
 Mr. Jeremiah Shanks, the father, had, from small beginnings, 
 raised himself to the rank of a millionnaire in the good town of Man- 
 chester, which he had for some time left, for one of the best houses 
 inPortman Square, London. On the strength of this, an unlimited 
 allowance, and these great names, he intended to push his son into 
 the very highest society, first of Oxford, and afterwards in the great 
 world, — in which it was the acme of his ambition, if it cost him 
 half his fortune, that his son should marry into a nobleman's fa- 
 mily, not under the degree of an earl. For though the name of 
 Shanks was not very euphonical, with a Lady Louisa, or Lady Oli- 
 via, prefixed to it, it would pass very well. 
 
 The young man's own ambition seconded that of his father 5 but 
 unfortunately, not having a single acquaintance in the university, 
 and there being no gentleman commoner at Queen's but himself, 
 there was a dead stop put at first to his progress. 
 
 In this dilemma, his good or bad fortune threw him in the way 
 of an Honourable Mr. Merrilon, a man of original and reckless hu- 
 mour, notorious for what was called practically quizzing all the 
 fools he could find in Oxford — which were not a few. Our hero's 
 foible was the very thing for him. It was not easily concealed ; but 
 if it had been, Mr. Merriton's penetration would have discovered it 
 directly, if only from the two christian names which he bore, with- 
 out any connection with the noble families to which they belonged. 
 
 This was exactly the game Mr. Merriton was so fond of pursuing \ 
 and for this purpose he did not scruple to make advances to Mr. 
 Courtenay Waldegrave Shanks, which were eagerly met by that 
 gentleman. In truth, the Honourable Mr. Merriton found him as 
 
186 
 
 DE CLIFFORD : 
 
 docile, and disposed to all the follies by which he designed to ex- 
 pose him, as his heart could wish. 
 
 " You desire to make a name," said Mr. Merriton on the fourth 
 day of his acquaintance with Mr. Shanks. 44 This is as it should 
 be — a fair and honest ambition. Your object is fashion and good 
 company — also a most laudable desire. But you are not known, 
 have never been at a public school, and have no high connections. 
 Unfortunate! But, then, you have what is better, a great deal of 
 money 5 nay, you say without limit. With such advantages over 
 us fine gentlemen, as we call ourselves, I should be glad to see what 
 you may not do, whether as to conduct or company — that is to say, 
 provided you do not mind the expense." 
 
 Mr. Shanks assured his noble preceptor that expense was the last 
 thing he should mind, and gave him cart-blanche as to directions 
 how to conduct himself, which he promised implicitly to follow. 
 This was precisely what the Honourable Mr. Merriton wished, and 
 prepared himself accordingly. 
 
 " You see," said he, to his unsuspecting pupil, " acquaintances, 
 especially of a certain sort, are not like me — they are not to be got 
 for asking." 
 
 u I would do any thing," said Shanks. 
 
 " Would you give a cool hundred for a hunter that is well worth it?" 
 " Yes, and a great deal more, if well worth it, and it led, as I 
 suppose you mean, to a becoming acquaintance." 
 u And you would pay down the money on the nail?" 
 14 Yes! A draft on my father." 
 
 u Good ! " said Merriton. " Then I will introduce you to a friend 
 of mine, the Honourable Mr. Corbyn, son of Lord Corbyn. He is 
 tired of the chase, and means to part with his hunter." 
 
 " How very obliging you are," cried Mr. Courtenay Waldegrave, 
 " to condescend to all this ; and for a person you scarcely know." 
 
 " Pray don't mention it 5 but come with me to Mr. Corbyn's 
 rooms, and the bargain shall be struck, and you shall see the horse 
 out directly." 
 
 " I don't want to see the horse," said the generous, confiding 
 Shanks ; " I am quite satisfied with your recommendation." 
 
 " You really ought to be noble yourself," observed Mr. Merri- 
 ton, though with his tongue in his cheek, " for your conduct is 
 noble and they adjourned to the Honourable Mr. Corbyn's rooms. 
 
 That gentleman was not a little surprised, perhaps disconcerted, 
 at Merriton's forcing an acquaintance upon him from Queen's, 
 though a gentleman commoner, and began to look blue at both his 
 visitors 5 but when he learned their errand, he changed to some- 
 thing like civility 5 allowed that it was most handsome conduct, most 
 gentlemanly, certainly, to take the horse upon trust, even without 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 187 
 
 seeing him ; but he assured Mr. Shanks he would not repent it ; 
 pocketed the draft, and bowed him out of the room. 
 
 Mr. Courtenay Waldegrave, in ecstasy, informed his father of 
 what he had done, observing that if the horse was not worth his 
 keep, still it was a cheap purchase, considering that the friendship 
 of one honourable was cemented, and of another acquired by it. 
 
 The blockhead, his father, approved highly of this conduct ; and 
 half the purchase went to pay a debt from the Honourable Mr. 
 Corbyn to the Honourable Mr. Merriton 5 with only a little draw- 
 back to the former, when he debated how he was to receive the 
 greeting of this most gentlemanly purchaser of horses, should he 
 meet him in the streets. 
 
 This was so good a beginning by Mr. Merrilon with his pupil, 
 that he did not like to have done with him, especially as this was 
 only a piece of profit, and he wished for a scene of humour for his 
 next operation. It soon offered, and did honour to Mr. Merriton's 
 genius. 
 
 Notwithstanding the expectations kindled by his honourable pa- 
 tron, and an unheard-of expense in, among other luxuries of the 
 kind, a rose-water bidet, and a basin of Eau de Cologne for his 
 barber to dip his fingers in when he shaved him, poor Shanks did 
 not advance into good company as he had hoped. The truth is, 
 Merriton could not carry his own point of hoaxing the parvenu, 
 from the unwillingness of his friends to join in it ; not from any 
 consideration for him, but lest it should necessarily lead to an in- 
 tercourse which they could not, in decency, shake off. Merriton's 
 love of sport, however, at last succeeded, salvo honore, of his dig- 
 nified friends. 
 
 Having settled his plan with a few leaders, he engaged his pro- 
 tege to give a great dinner. u We don't get on as we ought," said 
 he to him one day, " and I think it is because we are not bold 
 enough. The progress by attempts at mere cap acquaintance is 
 slow and doubtful. What think you of giving a grand dinner to a 
 dozen tufts at once? Few will resist turtle and burgundy." 
 
 "I should have no objection," said the aspirant, " but I don't 
 know them." 
 
 " Leave that to me," answered Merriton ; f I will prepare a list 
 of the very best company, while you go to the Star and order the 
 very best dinner that Adams can furnish 5 all the luxuries in or out 
 of season 5 fruits and wines, such as may vie with Blenheim itself. 
 But mind, you must be prepared for a large bill. Fifty, at least." 
 
 "I should not mind that," returned our parvenu, " if you are 
 sure it will secure the company you propose." 
 
 " I have already settled it with them," replied Merriton. 
 
 And so he had — and in a way which will scarcely be credited, 
 except by those who know how far the love of hoaxing, and parti- 
 
188 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 cularly of hoaxing an upstart who looks beyond his place, will carr j 
 young men of quality. In fact, those to whom Merriton opened 
 his design said they had no objection to make Shanks give a dinner 
 to cost fifty pounds, and to eat part of it too, if it could be so con- 
 trived as not to give him a claim upon their acquaintance after- 
 wards — which they did not feel to be possible after they had sat at 
 his own table with him. 
 
 To this difficulty the genius of Merriton supplied a remedy, and 
 he promised that Shanks should not sit down with them, nor even 
 see them, provided they would fairly attend. 
 
 Having obtained this promise from fourteen or fifteen of them, 
 he thus set to work with his victim. 
 
 " You see, my good Shanks," said he, " the only thing you want 
 to gratify your praiseworthy ambition, and become one of us, is to 
 get a name — to be talked of as one, not only indifferent to money, 
 but superior to all forms and ceremonies, and perfectly independent 
 of the society you wish to enter. It is your having courted them so 
 much that has perhaps prevented you hitherto from succeeding. 
 Now if you can shew this indifference after they have shewn them- 
 selves ready to banquet with you, it will be a triumph to you for 
 ever, and only make them more desirous to cultivate you. " 
 
 "The object seems excellent," replied Shanks, "but how is it 
 to be brought about? " 
 
 " Why thus," said Merriton. u Your dinner is to-morrow : the 
 account of it, its luxuries, and expense of all kinds, together with a 
 list of the company, all their titles set forth, is already preparing 
 for the Oxford paper. Four tufts, and ten silk gowns, seven of them 
 honourables, all printed by name. Now what if you should coolly 
 mount your fine hunter in the morning, and join the duke 1 (it is 
 one of his days, you know); then, just about dinner-time, let me 
 have a note from you, telling me carelessly (as if you did not 
 value either your fine dinner, or fine company, a rush), that the 
 sport would probably detain you so long, that you are sorry you 
 will not be able to attend ; but you must request me to do the ho- 
 nours for you, and not to spare the champagne ; and conclude by 
 hoping that you will not be missed, et cetera, et cetera. Don't you 
 think this would shew an admirable nonchalance, and put you not 
 only upon an equality, but greatly above the guests who are sup- 
 posed to do you such honour, but for whom, while you feed them 
 nobly, you thus shew such a dignified indifference ? " 
 
 " I really think it an admirable plan," said Courtenay Waldegrave. 
 
 "All this, too, you will remember," added Merriton, w will bo 
 in the Oxford papers, with the account of the dinner, and upon my 
 word, with such a paragraph as may be made of it, your name wilt 
 be up for ever." 
 
 1 Duke of Beaufort. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 189 
 
 Mr. Shanks was, it seems, completely beguiled by this flattering 
 proposal of the traitor Merriton, and fell at once into the snare. 
 The guests assembled 5 the dinner was superb 5 the note was 
 brought; Merriton took the chair amid roars oflaughter from his 
 brother hoaxers, and the evening passed off with the utmost con- 
 viviality, said the Oxford paper, though, to the regret of the noble 
 visitors, without the presence of the master of the feast. 
 
 But though this devotee of a foolish ambition thus lost a magni- 
 ficent dinner, for which he was to pay, while others ate it, he was 
 not allowed to reap the reward of his folly. Sallying forth the nexl 
 day to take possession of his honours, and looking right and left for 
 his new acquaintances, to his dismay, as well as astonishment, none 
 of them would recognise him. Some cut him dead 5 some crossed 
 the street the moment they saw him \ and the most favourable just 
 jerked their chins, said a short yes ! to his remark that it was a fine 
 day, and hastily passed on. 
 
 He was in amaze, and betook himself to his counsellor for expla- 
 nation, who assured him he could not account for it, for all thought 
 the dinner exquisite but he could not help perceiving, he said, 
 that they shewed symptoms of jealousy, nay perhaps, were a little 
 angry at being so cavalierly treated. "This, however, my good 
 friend," added Merriton, " makes for you, and proves what I said 
 it would — your superiority to them all." 
 
 This entirely satisfied Mr. Shanks for a time ; till by degrees, 
 the continued slights of his noble friends, and the titter of those of 
 his own rank wherever he appeared, to say nothing of the clear 
 exposure of the trick by his tutor, Fothergill, convinced him of 
 the truth. 
 
 He debated at first whether he should not call out Merriton, who 
 got immortal honour among all ranks for the ingenious hoax ; but 
 of this he thought better, and the only result was, that Merriton 
 himself avoided him, for fear, as he said, of consequences \ in truth, 
 to use his own language, having done with the vulgar dog. 
 
 The effect of all this was, that Mr. Shanks removed from Oxford 
 sooner than he would have done, and did what, he could to hush up 
 the story. Nevertheless, the old leaven continued to poison him \ 
 indeed how could it be otherwise, with such a father ? Accordingly, 
 he sought his idol in every place and under every form, with more 
 or less success 5 though often he egregiously failed. Thus, it was 
 whispered that on the race-course at Epsom he once made up to a 
 youthful marquess, whose ruling passion was the turf, which, while 
 in operation, levels all distinctions, and who so far relented as to 
 enter into a bet with him of 300Z. on a favourite horse. Shanks 
 expected, nay hoped, to lose ; but for the sake of so cheap a pur- 
 chase of the acquaintance of a duke's son, accepted the bet, and to 
 his astonishment, as well as disappointment, won. He was gratified. 
 
190 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 however, to find that the marquess was in no condition to pay him 
 except by offering his note, which was most gladly accepted. 
 
 What was his horror to find, notwithstanding, that, when off the 
 course, the young lord was stiffer than ever towards him, and 
 stoutly refused all familiarity, or even acquaintance 5 passing him 
 in the streets, though he knew he had his note in his pocket. 
 
 A great stroke of policy, however, remained. Having heard 
 that the marquess had bitterly lamented his having come under 
 such obligation to one of a doubtful degree, he resolved to take a 
 noble revenge, which he thought would play his own game at the 
 same time. He enclosed the note cancelled to his noble debtor, 
 calling it a trifle in comparison with the pleasure he had in being 
 of service to him. 
 
 The marquess was puzzled, and, from necessity, was beginning 
 to hesitate, when he was saved by the duke, his father 5 who, 
 hearing of the transaction, and quite as exclusive as his son, paid 
 the money, and my lord marquess continued, as before, to decline 
 all knowledge of the unfortunate Courtenay Waldegrave. 
 
 " This," said Fothergill, who gave me all these details, rubbing, 
 his hands when he related the story, " makes an excellent niche in 
 my book of human nature." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 LORD ALBANY OFFERS TO BERTHA, AND IS REFUSED — ITS EFFECT ON HER BROTHER. 
 
 Why do you look so startingly and rash? 
 
 Shakspeare.— Othello. 
 
 The reader, probably, will not be displeased if I leave the 
 didactic Fothergill for a while, for something more stirring than 
 what may be thought the dry maxims of life upon which I have 
 been dilating. 
 
 Very soon after the conference last recorded, upon the necessity 
 of forgetting there was such a family in existence as that of Foljambe 
 Park, I was myself sufficiently stirred both in mind and heart, by 
 receiving a letter from the very spot. The post-mark made me 
 start not a little, and the hand-writing of Granville still more. 
 To think how my fingers and whole frame trembled as I broke, 
 or rather tore open the seal, with ten thousand guesses and self- 
 questions on what could be the subject, or why he should write 
 at all! They, in fact, retarded the operation, anxious as I was to 
 perform it. 
 
 A good, honest, unrefined plodder would have opened the letter 
 in half the lime. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 191 
 
 Well, not to afflict my reader with the same gratuitous anxiety, 
 I have to acquaint him, that Granville told me little or nothing, 
 but that he should soon be at Oxford. " Not worih his while," 
 said I, throwing the letter on the table with something like spleen, 
 " to lake and give so much trouble for such a piece of intelli- 
 gence-, " and I own I walked about disgusted with it the whole day. 
 
 Nevertheless, for that and several days after I had no eyes or 
 ears but for the coaches that almost hourly arrived in the town, 
 particularly those from the north ; and not a little of my spare time 
 was given to coursing up and down the High-street, to and from 
 All Souls, the College of this interesting Granville. 
 
 He came at last, and by my loo great agitation at seeing him 
 again, coupled with loo studious an avoidance of any thing like 
 curiosity about the place he came from, he detected how it was 
 with me in a moment. Had it been better disguised, however, it 
 would all have been at once laid bare, by the manner in which I 
 received the news he very soon told me. 
 
 He had begun by probing me, being almost angry, he said, at my 
 pretended apathy, yet affecting to think me thoroughly cured. 
 
 "You have nothing then to ask me, 1 ' said he, " about those I 
 came from? 11 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " Nor care for any intelligence concerning them?" 
 " Not much." 
 
 u y erv good. What if I should tell you of most important 
 changes, both as to brother and sister? " 
 " Changes ! " 
 
 " Yes; no less than a treaty for a double marriage." 
 This overset all my equanimity. 
 
 " For God's sake, Granville," I cried, " spare me. I at least am 
 not changed. I acknowledge my hypocrisy, and am properly pu- 
 nished. Sir Harry then has succeeded, and I again say I am glad 5 
 but whatofFoljambe?" 
 
 At this my friend began to sympathize with me. He changed his 
 air and tone, and wishing I was really the philosopher I had ap- 
 peared, told me a tale of wonder : that almost immediately after Sir 
 Harry had taken his leave, Lord Albany and his sister, Lady Char- 
 lotte, had visited Foljambe Park, where, though they came but for a 
 fortnight, they had staid the whole Autumn ; the assigned cause, 
 Lord Albany's love of field sports (there enjoyed in perfection) and 
 Lady Charlotte's sudden friendship and admiration for Bertha. 
 
 The admiration, however, was by no means confined to her lady- 
 ship, but largely shared by my lord, whose love for sports out of 
 doors soon contracted itself to a love of another kind within. In 
 short, he abandoned the chase to become a most warm and assi- 
 duous suitor to Bertha. This example was followed in every point 
 
192 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 by Foljambe, whose former flirtations with Lady Charlotte had 
 grown into sober seriousness, and Granville had left him an ac- 
 cepted lover. 
 
 44 And Lord Albany?" 
 
 44 Expected to be so." 
 
 " Expected?" 
 
 " Yes 5 favoured and urged on in his pursuit by Foljambe ; and 
 though not approved by her father, at least not rejected by him, or 
 yet by Bertha herself." 
 
 "Well," said I, " God bless her ! and bless them all ! " and I as- 
 sumed a tone of decision, which ralher surprised my informant. 
 44 And yet," continued I, 44 for her own sake, I would rather " 
 
 44 What?" 
 
 u That she had chosen Sir Harry than Lord Albany." 
 
 " And I, too," observed Granville. 44 He was more suited to her. 
 The marquess's love is more for her beauty 5 and so I believe she 
 feels it ; but the decisions of even the best of women are not always 
 comprehensible 5 though a wish to be a marchioness may have in- 
 fluence with the best." 
 
 44 Depend upon it," said I, with a courage inspired by my genuine 
 persuasions of her disinterestedness, 44 that consideration will never 
 be an influencing cause for any decision of Bertha's. Lord Albany's 
 are all brute merits ; robust accomplishments, overbearing manners, 
 athletic nerves, bodily energies 5 in short, they are all 4 of the earth, 
 earthy.' Bertha is truly feminine ; cultivated in mind, as elegant in 
 person ; playful and arch, yet mild and dignified ; full of modesty 
 — full of sweetness a blooming rose, a graceful myrtle !. Such 
 union is not, nor it cannot come to good : — 
 
 ' But break, ray heart, for I must hold my tongue.' " 
 
 Here I confess my firmness gave way 5 my bravery failed ; I felt 
 all the bitterness of pent-up grief forced at last to vent itself in ac- 
 tion, and though heartily ashamed, with sighs, and a faltering 
 yoice, I confessed all my weakness — all my dismay. 
 
 My condition affected Granville. "I had hoped," said he, 44 that 
 your assurances of recovery had been belter founded, particularly 
 after the impressions you said had been made upon you by the sage 
 Fothergill." 
 
 44 1 will yet," replied I, 44 rise superior to this weakness; but 
 fc who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neu- 
 tral, in a moment?' I only wish that you had brought me word 
 that the event was over } for it is easier to bear a positive evil than 
 uncertainty. Yet you say the fact is certain." 
 
 To my surprise, Granville paused at this ; nay, hesitated and 
 looked uneasy. 
 
 44 1 fear," said he, u I was not quite so correct as I ought to have 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 193 
 
 been, but was misled by the firm countenance you shewed, to stale 
 a thing as certain, which was only, as I believe I expressed it, ex- 
 pected." 
 
 u But there is no doubt," cried I — " which is the same thing." 
 
 u Why, as to that, also/' answered he, " I ought not perhaps to 
 pledge myself 5 though from Foljambe's assurances, and Bertha's 
 civilities to the marquess " 
 
 " Civilities! " exclaimed I; " Gracious heaven ! So cold a re- 
 turn for love ! And will she go to the altar with civilities — and will 
 he accept them ? " and I own I felt disdainful. 
 
 "Come," said Granville, "this misunderstanding, the conse- 
 quence of my blunders, need not be. Bertha will never give her 
 hand without her heart; nor could I mean to say so • all that I did 
 mean was, that being the avowed object of the marquess's atten- 
 tions, she had not withdrawn from them." 
 
 " How could she withdraw," said t, gaining courage, u while he 
 was in the house? and from your account, the offer has not yet 
 been made." 
 
 " Not to herself, though sufficiently announced as intended ; at 
 least so I have been assured by her brother, his bosom friend." 
 
 " His wish," answered I, " was probably father of the thought, 
 and, after all, you may be mistaken. Bertha and Albany were never 
 made for one another." 
 
 " That may be a flattering unction which I would not wish you 
 to encourage. . 
 
 " Hear me, Granville," said I. "Whatever unction it may be, 
 be assured it is on her account, not on my own. To pretend, or 
 hope ever to be able to prelend, to this young lady, is not within a 
 possibility in my own mind ; and if I cannot conquer my madness, 
 I must submit to be conquered by it, and allow it to prey upon me 
 as it lists. But, without reference to myself, I may yet be permitted 
 to rejoice if she escape from a man not worthy of her. Such, with 
 all my inferiority of condition, I am bold enough to pronounce of 
 Lord Albany, in every thing but his coronet." 
 
 "I honour you, my good fellow, for this," replied Granville, 
 "as well as for every other trait of character you have shewn 
 throughout this unfortunate acquaintance. Would that you could 
 renounce your feelings. " 
 
 44 1 say not so," replied I, " for I am very well satisfied with them. 
 They do not injure me, and at least injure nobody else. Subdued 
 and regulated as they are, I believe they even do me good 5 for they 
 keep me out of mischief, and prevent me from loving any one of my 
 own degree,' whom I might ruin, and be^uined myself by marrying." 
 
 Granville smiled at this sally, and I left him, as usual, to meditate 
 in solitude upon the critical information he had communicated. 
 
 I was in truth sincere in my last observation. My conviction of 
 1. 13 
 
194 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 the total hopelessness of my passion for Bertha had got such entire 
 possession of me, that it became, as I have said before, part of my 
 mind, and gave me no disturbance 5 while, on the other hand, to 
 think of her in all the sweet array of her attractions, purified my 
 heart, as well as warmed my imagination. The thought of her was 
 my favourite companion, yet interfered with nothing else; it inter- 
 rupted neither business nor duty, while it elevated and refined the 
 pleasure I took in both. Possibly, I thought, should Lord Albany 
 succeed, though it might go far to cure me, it might not render me 
 half so happy, for it would lower my opinion of Bertha. 
 
 From this danger, however, I was soon relieved; for when I 
 again saw Granville, which was after an absence of a week from 
 Oxford, and communicated this sentiment of mine, while he ac- 
 knowledged its refinement, and what he called its romance, he said, 
 u If it be really so, I am glad to be able to relieve you from the 
 danger of being cured, by w hat you would hold to be so derogatory 
 to your mistress as marrying a marquess and fifteen thousand a- 
 year 5 for the post has just put me in a condition to tell you she has 
 refused Lord Albany 5 — though in the sparkle of your countenance 
 I know not whether to read joy at her not sinking in your estima- 
 tion, or at your own hopes not being extinguished." 
 
 I assured him that in this last supposition he did me wrong, and 
 that my joy, which I did not disguise, solely arose from the proof 
 he had given that I was right in my estimation of her. 
 
 " I believe you," said he, heartily shaking my hand ; then taking 
 out a letter, he communicated the details of his interesting news. 
 
 The letter was from Mr. Hastings, for it was much beneath Fol- 
 jambe to communicate what he said so degraded his sister. 
 
 "You know, my good nephew," said Mr. Hastings, "that I 
 have never countenanced this affair, though I could not myself so 
 affront a man of Lord Albany's quality, by telling him to desist, or 
 urging any objection on my own part as a father ; and knowing full 
 well that Bertha herself would not be favourable, I thought it best 
 to leave it entirely to her. The result is, as I foresaw, that she has 
 declined his proposal. The coolness this has produced with the 
 marquess would be nothing, but I am sorry to add, the ire of my 
 son against his sister is unbearable." 
 
 Mr. Hastings then went on to say that it was still stronger against 
 her than when she declined the addresses of Sir Harry, and he did 
 not, it seems, conceal from his father, any more than Bertha her- 
 self, his disgust at her conduct. She was a poor, mean-spirited 
 wretch, unworthy her name and station, and might, to use his own 
 expression, go to the devil her own way. As for her principal ob- 
 jections — the youth of tfiem both — which was stated, he said, as a 
 mere blind— -or the incompatibility of their dispositions and Irabits 
 — he did not believe a word of them, and condemned her as an art- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 195 
 
 ful hypocrite. He only, however, touched so far upon what he had 
 urged in the affair of Sir Harry, in regard to her thoughts of an- 
 other, as to say he would rather see her in her grave, or send me to 
 mine, than such a thing should be. 
 
 " How to meet these bursts of feeling, or how treat these threats," 
 said Mr. Hastings, cc I know not 5 but I fear danger in them to some 
 one or other, from his unreflecting and headlong violence. I am 
 quite sure that Mr. Clifford deserves no part of his wrath, and so I 
 am positively assured by Bertha herself. I own I am disappointed, 
 as well as Lord Albany 5 and as I have many reasons for not wishing 
 that she should be addressed by any one at present, I own I am glad 
 of her delusion, and cannot with any justice go to the extremes to 
 which I am urged by this headstrong boy. Pray heaven that his 
 own settlement with Lady Charlotte? which still proceeds, may in 
 the end reclaim him. But the worst is, that he has quarrelled with 
 his intended brother-in-law, or rather the brother-in-law with him. 
 The marquess accuses him of having misrepresented Bertha's feel- 
 ings towards him, saying he should not otherwise have condes- 
 cended to pursue her as he did ; and both are too proud to make up 
 the difference which this language has occasioned. Indeed I am by 
 no means sure that all is yet ended between these hot young men ; 
 nor are things likely tojbe mended by the marquess now doing all in 
 his power to break the match between his sister and his chosen 
 college friend. In short, my whole domestic prospect is overcast, 
 and I wish to heaven you had not left us, for much I want you." 
 
 Such was the important letter which Granville placed in my 
 hands, by way, as he called it, of restoring Bertha to my esteem. 
 Heaven knows how little that was needed. 
 
 But the details it contained besides were by no means indifferent, 
 or of an ordinary complexion. My first source of anxiety was as to 
 the causes of this conduct in Bertha. She had now, a second time 
 within a few months, refused offers, high as was her own lot, equal 
 to it in every respect 5 in the last, as to worldly advantages, even 
 its superior. What could have induced such indifference, perse- 
 vered in with such firmness, though left free by her father, and 
 against all the wishes of her brother, in a girl of her age, who in 
 general looks to settlement in marriage as the great and sole object 
 of life ? Was she cold ? severe in temper ? unsociable ? selfish ? insen- 
 sible? Ah no ! the reverse of all these. What was it then ? For the 
 life of me I could not find out. 
 
 In regard to the other parties, I was still less easy. The hints 
 thrown out that all was not ended between two such fiery spirits, 
 hot with youth, "jealous and quick in quarrel," with each a sense 
 of injury, and, what is worse, of affront, occasioned much alarm to 
 the good-natured Granville, and, I will own, some to me. 
 
 What I had known of Foljambe gave me no confidence in his 
 
196 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 discretion, his coolness, or his placability, particularly if his pride 
 was wounded. If so, the very rank and consideration of the marquess 
 would go to swell all his feelings, so as to make them ungovernable. 
 
 On the other hand, what I had heard of the overbearing haugh- 
 tiness of the marquess himself, excited as it might be, if only by 
 mortified vanity, to say nothing of love, gave one no prospect of 
 that mutual forbearance which, in the outset, by sparing many a 
 quarrel, has saved many a life. 
 
 Granville was anxiously struck with fears for the event, and 
 talked of returning instantly to the Park, according to the wish 
 expressed by his relative $ an intention' in which he was by no 
 means discouraged by me. In fact, he setoff, with a promise to let 
 me know the termination of the affair, fortunate or unfortunate. 
 
 My own anxiety in the interval may be imagined, and Folher- 
 gill, from whom I could conceal nothing, was almost as anxious as 
 myself. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE MARQUESS AND FOLJAMBE, FROM FRIENDS, BECOME IRRECONCILABLE ENEMIES, 
 AND ENGAGE IN A DEADLY QUARREL. 
 
 High-stomach'd are they both, and full of ire. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Richard H. 
 
 It was four days after Granville's departure before I heard from 
 him, and when I heard, it was to make me far more unhappy. The 
 exasperated friends, changed into determined enemies, had met, 
 and the consequences were disastrous to them both. Lord Albany 
 was as furious with his sister for refusing to break with Hastings, 
 as Hastings was with his, for refusing to accept Lord Albany. This, 
 and the affront put upon the family by the language of the marquess, 
 that he would not have condescended tojDursue Bertha had he not 
 been encouraged, inflamed irritation to its, height. 
 
 To do Foljambe justice, he endeavoured first to obtain some satis- 
 factory explanation of the phrase, — which was proudly refused • 
 and a hint was then dropt of the necessary consequence, which was 
 only prevented, Foljambe said, by the circumstance that the mar- 
 quess was still the guest of Mr. Hastings. Albany instantly ordered 
 his carriage, and whispered Foljambe, that he would wait for him 
 at York, where the impediment he had hinted might at once be 
 removed. 
 
 It may be supposed that Foljambe soon followed, but first placed 
 Granville in a most distressing situation, by opening the affair 
 lo him, and insisting, that as a relation as well as a friend, it con- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 197 
 
 cerned himself in vindicating the honour of the family, he should 
 accompany him as his second. 
 
 Granville at first refused, and was for communicating the matter to 
 his father; but upon second thought, feeling convinced that the 
 meeting could not be prevented, and hoping he might be able to 
 mitigate the extremities of passion by good offices, he resolved to 
 comply, and proceeded with Foljambe to York. There they found 
 the marquess, -wjio had already provided himself with a friend, in 
 an old acquaintance, Colonel Sackville, whom he met in the sub- 
 scription-room, and who could not refuse a man of his quality, 
 soliciting his support in an affair of honour. 
 
 Granville did all he could with this gentleman to influence him 
 to persuade* Lord Albany to do common justice to the affronted 
 party ; and, to do justice to Colonel Sackville, he did not scruple 
 to tell Lord Albany he thought him in the wrong. But, that mis- 
 guided person said it was too late 5 and all that was left for the 
 seconds was to see fair play. This was the more necessary, from 
 the exasperation of the parties, which was little short of madness. 
 They went out immediately, and the usual distance being settled, 
 the principals (fatally for themselves, both admirable shots) fired at 
 the same moment, and both fell. 
 
 The subsequent consternation may be supposed. So violent had 
 been the haste of these once loving friend to destroy one another, 
 that no surgeon had been provided, and had not the valets of each 
 been in attendance, there might have been difficulty in removing 
 them when fallen 5 but through these servants carriages were 
 quickly procured. The seconds, unmindful of their own safety, had 
 remained to give all the assistance they could till more aid arrived, 
 and at length these ungovernable young men were conveyed to the 
 same hotel, and put to bed, insensible, half-dead from loss of blood, 
 and barely still alive. 
 
 Two surgeons were immediately in attendance, whose first care 
 was to restore animation, which was with difficulty effected. The 
 wounds were then probed, and both pronounced most dangerous, if 
 not hopeless. The marquess's ball was indeed extracted from the 
 breast, where it had entered, but that of Foljambe baffled all their 
 attempts. When Granville wrote, the marquess's wound was pro- 
 nounced not altogether without hope, but Foljambe's desperate: 
 both seconds had, therefore, left the city, together with the two 
 servants. Mr. Hastings had come to York, to attend his son, and 
 Bertha, deluged in grief, had been left at the Park, the child of 
 woe, reproaching herself as the murderess of her brother. Good 
 God ! " what a piece of work is man ! " loft in peace, " how noble 
 in reason, how infinite in faculties $ in action how like an angel ! " 
 once enchafed, how instantly overthrown ! transformed by rage, 
 unrnoulding reason's mintages, 
 
198 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 1 Into the inglorious likeness of a beast." 
 
 The effect of this news upon me may be conceived. My regard 
 for Foljambe, never thoroughly extinguished, seemed to revive 
 with his threatened fate. I wished to go to York to attend his bed- 
 side; I thought I could comfort him. Alas ! I did not recollect that 
 he could derive comfort from any one sooner than me : that in his 
 mad passion, he in some measure might look upon me as the cause 
 of his catastrophe, and that though dying he might spurn me from 
 him. 
 
 # I thought still more of the lovely sufferer at the Park. Oh ! had 
 my lot permitted me to have shared and assuaged her sorrows ! but 
 I could do nothing. I was powerless, hopeless, and therefore more 
 miserable. 
 
 I sought Fothergill, but found no comfort in him. He was in 
 his dryest and sliffest vein, and scarcely, except as a Christian, com- 
 miserated these unhappy youths, as I called them. 
 
 " Unhappy ! " cried he, sternly. "Who made them so? Not their 
 Creator, whom they have braved, but themselves. Did they not 
 court, nay, force on their fate, not as many honourable madmen 
 do, for honour's sake, but from mere unbridled, ruffian passion ? 
 Do they even now repent?" 
 
 £i Surely, Sir," said I, " we ought to think they do; at least, it is 
 uncharitable without proof to suppose they do not." 
 
 " When the proof comes," he replied, " I will believe it, and 
 pity them ; meantime, pray God to forgive them, which they pro- 
 bably do not do by one another." 
 
 " Indeed, Sir," said I, " this is too shocking." 
 
 " You think so," answered he, " and it may appear so to your 
 inexperience. But they are both the children of pride, and never 
 did I know a really proud man but thought himself too good to 
 submit to forgiveness, whatever his wrong. 
 
 f Think'st thou I mean to live ? To be forgiven ? ' 
 
 was the insolent taunt of Calisla to her own father, spurning at 
 penitence; and Rowe knew human nature when he put it in her 
 mouth. 
 
 " What was it but pride that sunk the evil one himself to perdi- 
 tion, and made him 'as far from begging' as he thought the God 
 he had offended was 'from granting peace?' Hence the fool who 
 thought in his heart there was no God, was less guilty than the 
 proud man who acknowledges, only to defy him. For the fool was 
 only a fool, and, unhappily for himself ignorant of God. The proud 
 man admits his existence, but cares not for him. 
 
 " I know not," continued Fothergill, " if you are as fond of 
 Spencer as you are of Shakspeare ; if you are, perhaps you may 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN 
 
 199 
 
 remember that terrible description of the house of pride, and the 
 procession of its queen, so poetic and so revolting? " 
 I told him I knew it not. 
 
 " Then read it," said he, "when you go home, and mark the 
 beings that draw and drive her chariot. They are all the worst vices 
 — idleness, gluttony, lechery, avarice, envy, and wrath. These are 
 her cattle, and the driver Satan '. Fit equipage, you will say, for 
 pride. " 
 
 I shuddered at the description, and not less when he went on — 
 
 " The proud man's heart is always hard ; but these men, in ad- 
 dition to pride, were 4 minions of splendour,' and what do such 
 minions ever know of humanity? How can they pray, who know 
 not their Maker? Plunged in reckless, as well as endless dissipa- 
 tion, they have not God in all their thoughts. Self — absorbing self 
 — is their sole Deity. To think of having sinned, still more of 
 asking pardon for sin, is as strange and novel to them as it would 
 be degrading. No! these insolent men, who trampled upon every 
 thing and everybody about them, and would not humble themselves 
 to one another though death was at their door, will never humble 
 themselves before a God, their duty to whom, if they ever knew it, 
 they have wilfully renounced." 
 
 He said this with a sternness which shewed how sincere he was 
 in the sentiment, and in a manner so beyond his wont, thatl con- 
 fess I was awed, and did not reply. What struck me was, that in 
 other colleges, and even in the streets (not the same language in- 
 deed, bul), the same sort of opinion was expressed by the gowns- 
 men at large, among whom the news had by this time spread. 
 
 Neither Albany nor Hastings had borne their faculties meekly, 
 and their disdain of all below them had made them not merely 
 unpopular, but hated; a circumstance in which, in the true spirit 
 of Renowners, far from regretting it, they had seemed to glory. I 
 heard, therefore, no pitying voice at the catastrophe ; on the con- 
 trary, all pity was denied to those who, it was said, had never 
 shewn it to others. 
 
 Their fall was almost talked of with a satisfaction which made 
 me shudder, and had they known it, would have been deplored by 
 themselves. For men who are supported by vanity, even upon a 
 scaffold, lose at least the courage which vanity inspires when de- 
 prived of applause. How much more if they sink detested! 
 
 The whole impressed me with feelings as to human nature which 
 I never knew before. 
 
 Yet, slighted as they were, these youths were struck down in the 
 flower of their age 5 both of them noble, accomplished, talented, 
 and seemingly made for better things. 
 
 Faery Queen. B. I, Cant. 4, 
 
200 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 How such advantages could be so thrown away, and of what 
 little consequence were the highest gifts of fortune without per- 
 sonal merit, was a problem I could scarcely sohe ; yet the convic- 
 tion of it sank deeper with me every hour. 
 
 The effect was indelible, and the adventitious superiorities of 
 condition among men, once so lamented by me, now dwindled to 
 nothing. 
 
 Folhergill saw this, and asked whether, if even the two young 
 men recovered, I would exchange situations with either? "Had 
 they been struck in battle," said he, " how different their fate! how 
 honourably would they be mourned ! But to fall by each other's 
 hands ! converted in an hour from apparent, though evidently hol- 
 low friends, into savage enemies, and all from ungovernable rage 
 and empty vanity ! 
 
 *-* Of what avail are all their dazzling advantages? The poorest 
 peasant, the lowest artisan, if honest and simple in mind, is far 
 above them in estimation, even in this world ; what must it be in 
 the next?' 1 
 
 It was impossible not to assent to the truth of these sentiments ; 
 yet I was so struck by his earnestness, and seeming hostility to the 
 unfortunate objects of his attack, that I could not help asking him 
 whether they did not engage more of his interest, from their very 
 faulliness, and whether he would not pray for them?" 
 
 " I would," said he, "as I would, and do, for Jews, Turks, and 
 Infidels, but with full as little hope." 
 
 Fothergill was so emphatic in his tone when he uttered this, that 
 I desisted from the subject. In fact, although paying deferential 
 respect to the real ornaments of the aristocracy, which he said were 
 more numerous in proportion than in other divisions of society, it 
 is not easy to describe the compound of aversion and contempt with 
 which he regarded what he called the trifling, or vulgar great, who 
 had nothing intrinsic in their natures or manners to make them 
 valuable. 
 
 " Pride and emptiness," said he, " in whatever rank, but more 
 especially in the upper, l always consider as objects of ridicule, but 
 accompanied, as here, with deadly sin, of detestation." 
 
 Ail this was true, but my heart was full of what had happened. 
 It occupied me all night, and I longed for the early morning to 
 bring another post, whatever intelligence might be brought along 
 with it. 
 
 The morning came, and brought nothing 5 frc*m which I knew 
 not what to augur, and was only the more distressed from suspense. 
 The next day announced that the hope for Lord Albany continued, 
 but that the fear for Hastings was not diminished ; on (he contrary, 
 that the torture sustained by the still vain endeavour to extract the 
 ball, by producing fever, made every tiling worse. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 201 
 
 Bertha had implored lobe allowed to attend her sinking brother, 
 which, with an extremity of passion,, shocking to every one, he had 
 precipitately refused. 
 
 What a dreadful lesson of the mischiefs of self-indulged passion ! 
 
 Unable to bear the cruel uncertainties arising from distance from 
 the mournful scene, I at length obtained a reluctant consent from 
 Fothergill to proceed to York. 
 
 " To be repulsed with anger or contempt, like his poor sister," 
 said my tutor. " Have I not told you what a proud man is? And 
 does not this shew more than any thing how proud he is? Go. 
 Console him if you can, and try to make him ' think of Heaven's 
 bliss ; ! but depend upon it, though he die, he will ' make no sign.' " 
 
 I was shocked with this melancholy thought ; yet proceeded to 
 York with I know not what plan for my conduct, only I thought I 
 might relieve my o'erfraught heart if I could but see Hastings before 
 he died, and receive from him the last embrace of friendship. 
 
 On my arrival I flew to the hotel where he lay, but was refused 
 all access— not by him, who knew nothing of the visit, but by 
 the surgeon whom I saw, and who told me there was not a hope of 
 the case. 
 
 The senior Mr. Hastings, hearing I was there, occasioned me 
 some distress by coming into the room where I was, for I dreaded 
 his cold formality, perhaps now mixed with disdain and displeasure. 
 
 Ah ! with what little reason did I accuse him ! The high man of 
 quality was now bowed to the earth with a woe to have been exempt 
 from which he would have changed situations with me. For he 
 had been bitterly convinced, by this visitation, that in the eye of 
 Heaven he was no more than the lowest of his fellow-men, and that 
 the proudest can have little cause for pride in a lot of misery com- 
 mon to all. 
 
 Man of quality as he was, he was now a man of sorrows, and the 
 one seemed lost in the other. To my astonishment, therefore, after 
 the expectation I had formed, he accosted me not merely with po- ' 
 liteness, but soft complacency— nay, with tenderness ; for his pride 
 was scourged and his heart wrung ; and when I told him I had 
 always loved his son, so that I could not bear remaining so far from 
 him, though I might not be able to do him any service, the old 
 man's eyes filled with tears, and he grasped my hand with emotion 
 when he said, " And yet, my good young man, my poor son made 
 but an ill return, I fear, for your attachment ] but I trust you will 
 forgive him, for he has dearly paid for that, and all his other de- 
 ficiencies." 
 
 He could go no further, and I was too affected to reply. He then 
 made me sit down by him, but placing his finger on his lips, told 
 me we must not talk, for Charles lay in the next room, and if there 
 was a spark of hope, it could only be though the most absolute 
 
202 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 quiet. In fact, he had been only kept alive up to this time by lau- 
 danum. 
 
 Never before had I been so affected by another person's distress ; 
 for, though evidently acute, there was now a resignation and calm 
 about Mr. Hastings that seemed to throw a dignity around his sor- 
 row which only made it more impressive. At length he dismissed 
 me, whispering me to come again, though despairing of my ever 
 seeing his son alive. 
 
 It may be supposed that I thought of Bertha, but, for obvious 
 reasons, I dared not mention her name ; and so ended this first visit. 
 
 The second ( Ihe next day morning ) was still more overwhelming, 
 for the crisis approached, and called still more for exertion. One 
 of the surgeons and Mr. Hastings had watched all night, to observe 
 the least possible change for good or for bad ; the former being 
 absolutely necessary to enable them once more to attempt to extract 
 the ball, upon which the only chance of life depended. There was 
 no such change ; and if there had been, probably it would have been 
 without avail, for the sinking patient, when able to speak, only 
 shewed himself so, by begging that no more attempts might be made, 
 and that he might be allowed to die in peace. 
 
 The weeping father, assured by the surgeon that he would sink at 
 once under such an attempt, promised that he should suffer no 
 more, and waited the event with a submission which engaged all 
 my reverence. He stirred not from the bed-side, but, with the 
 sufferer's hand in his, watched the parting spirit. 
 
 In this crisis a message of inquiry was delivered from Lord Al- 
 bany, and Mr. Hastings with agony mentioned this, and Bertha's 
 and my name, to him 5 but life was ebbing fast ; nor was there 
 strength left to ascertain whether he had any, or what feeling to- 
 wards any of us, still less whether he thought u of heaven's bliss." 
 
 A momentary convulsion of doubtful import then seized his 
 cheek, and he opened his eyes \ but having fixed a vacant look upon 
 his father, closed them again for ever! 
 
 The news of this, communicated to me by the surgeon at the door 
 of the apartment, where I had passed two hours, changed the 
 anxieties I had undergone into a stupor from which I was not 
 easily recovered : and to my astonishment, when I awoke, I found 
 myself on a couch in Mr. Hastings' sitting-room. He had retained 
 all his self-possession 5 and on being informed of my condition, had 
 even come out to see me, and gave orders for my being attended. 
 How differently may we judge of persons from their deserts! 
 
 After coming to myself I was conveyed to my inn, and saw him 
 not again that day • but Mr. Sandford, the surgeon, by his desire, 
 came to see me in the evening. Recovered from the attack, and en- 
 couraged by Mr. Sandford's assiduity, I asked him as a favour to 
 tell me any particulars he knew of poor Foljambe's demeanour or 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 203 
 
 conversation during his sufferings, particularly as to any religious 
 impressions he might have shewn ■ for I own Fothergill's presages 
 had never quitted me, and they had shocked me so much, not more 
 on FoljambVs account than on that of human nature at large, that I 
 was anxious and hopeful that they should be disproved. 
 
 Sandford gave me no comfort \ quite the contrary. When his fa- 
 ther, whose whole conduct, he said, was admirable, intreated Fol- 
 jambe to think of what might be impending, and ask and send for- 
 giveness to his sister and Lord Albany, but still more to submit 
 himself to, and ask pardon of heaven — all which he did with most 
 pious earnestness — he could get no answer but a solemn demur to 
 the proposal. * 
 
 " What have I done," said he, " to be forgiven by Bertha and Al- 
 bany, who ought rather to ask forgiveness of me? and as to heaven, 
 thwarted as I have been in every thing in this world, what can I 
 expect in the next? Do not torment me, father, but let me die in 
 quiet." 
 
 I own this account overwhelmed me, and 1 thought with distress 
 of Fothergill's prediction. 
 
 With regard to the other proud man (Lord Albany), on the 
 strength of the message of inquiry sent by him to Foljambe, I had 
 some hope of him, and asked Mr. Sandford whether any thing like 
 contrition or forgiveness had been expressed on his part. Sand- 
 ford, who had been an army surgeon, said, that could hardly be 
 expected, and in fact had not probably been the motive. That Lord 
 Albany should be anxious that his antagonist should not die, was 
 natural on more accounts than one: "but we are to recollect," 
 said Sandford, " that Mr. Hastings was the challenger, and re- 
 ceived the fortune of war. Albany, moreover, is himself by no 
 means safe ; his life even now hangs upon a thread ; fever would 
 kill him directly." 
 
 All this did not make me happier; and under such feelings I felt 
 all the desolation of being left alone for the night, friendless, and 
 seemingly abandoned in a strange land, the scene of so much misery. 
 
 The next morning I was consoled by learning that Granville had 
 returned. Both he and Colonel Sackville had changed their inten- 
 tions of retiring. As there was no witness to the duel but themselves 
 and the valets, who had gone out of the way, nothing could be 
 brought home to them; and their withdrawal, which would be 
 construed into absconding, could only excite suspicion • they there- 
 fore both returned. 
 
 Granville's feelings may be conceived. He was alive to the dread- 
 ful blow the family had sustained, made worse by the total absence 
 of a sufficient cause for the unhappy measure that had occasioned 
 it. On this, grieved as he was, he did not conceal his opinion, or 
 that it had taken its rise solely from the headlong violence and 
 
204 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 overbearing pride of the sufferer. His removal, however, he said, 
 might perhaps after all be belter for himself, as well as those who 
 now wept him — so dangerous and so uncertain are the ways of the 
 proud and self-willed. 
 
 Upon this I told him how little Foljambe had been pitied at 
 Oxford : when he observed, it was to be expected, and, could he have 
 known it, it would have been his severest mortification. 
 
 I had, however, other matter to communicate, in the changed, 
 and, to me, surprising behaviour of Mr. Hastings. 
 
 " Why," said Granville, when I mentioned it, " though one of 
 the proudest as to birth and all aristocratic prejudices, his pride 
 was always, and sometimes successfully, encountered by his piety 5 
 for as far as sentiment and a sense of dependence upon heaven go, 
 he is most sincerely and naturally pious:, so that his prejudices, 
 which are those merely of education, are often, even in ordinary 
 matters, at variance with his religious feelings, which are those 
 of the heart. At* the present moment, the latter have obtained 
 complete ascendancy; for he thinks he is deservedly under the hand 
 of Heaven, chastising him for his good. Indeed, I have often 
 known him presage that his pride would be one day severely vi- 
 sited by providence-, and he supposes the blow he has deserved 
 by way of punishment is now struck. Hence his change from 
 loftiness to humility and resignation, and his softness to you. 
 
 " It would be now, indeed, no time to shew pride, if he had it 
 even in a greater degree ; but his pride, at any rate, is very different 
 from poor Fqljambe's, which arose out of an impetuous and even 
 tyrannous disposition, unchecked by religion, and wholly different 
 from that of his father who is a just man. The one was an impe- 
 rious disdain of every thing that did not yield to him ; the other, 
 the innocuous prejudices of a good-natured, well-born gentleman, 
 merely conscious and fond of a long pedigree." 
 
 I own I had a secret pleasure in hearing these nice distinctions 
 in the pride of father and son, which never struck me before, but 
 which, thus pointed out, seemed no more than just. Yet even this, 
 I thought, did not account for the unusual kindness of manner 
 shewn by Mr. Hastings, and I expressed to Granville my wonder 
 how it arose. 
 
 t; Clearly," said he, "from the justice I have mentioned as a 
 part of his character. He thought, what was Iruc, that you had 
 been ill-treated by his son, at whose change towards you, without 
 any cause, he was highly disgusted. Bertha, too, though I am 
 more than ever afraid to mention her to you, shared this feeling, 
 and both paid due respect to your ancient descent, to which Mr. 
 Hastings himself always attached no small importance." 
 
 At the name of Bertha I started, but could not help asking Gran- 
 ville why he was more than ever afraid of mentioning her? 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 205 
 
 "Why, see you not, 1 ' said he, " that her position is greatly 
 changed by what has happened, and that she is no longer in the 
 ordinary condition of a young woman with a fixed portion, but has 
 become a great heiress? 1 ' 
 
 The thought struck me profoundly, and the more from its having 
 never occurred to me before. 
 
 "To be sure,' 1 continued Granville, "West-India properly, 
 which forms the bulk of their fortune, is uncertain, and there are 
 sometimes strange revolutions among these plantation grandees ; 
 nevertheless, the domain of Foljambe alone, though not consider- 
 able, would render her a far more weighty match than she was 
 before. I speak in a worldly point of view." 
 
 " Worldly, indeed," said I, and I gave a sigh, not unobserved by 
 Granville. 
 
 " I know," said he, "what that sigh implies ; and I agree with 
 you in thinking that Bertha is such a fortune in herself, that he 
 must be a worldly-minded wretch that could think of pelf when 
 thinking of her. To seek fortune with her would be ' gilding refined 
 gold.' Nevertheless, we must open our eyes, and confess that the 
 sphere of her attraction is enlarged by this event. Your sigh, too, 
 has also another meaning." 
 
 I asked what? 
 
 " Why, I have by my expression set before you more than ever 
 all that, in the view of the world, interposes between you and your 
 ambition. But is not this the truth, and ought you not to be told it 
 by a friend, if it does not occur to yourself? Can I shew myself 
 this friend better than by setting before you the still greater neces- 
 sity than ever of abandoning what, if pursued, will inevitably 
 destroy you?" 
 
 * 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 RESIGNATION AND DANGER OF MR. HASTINGS. — 'FIRMNESS OF HIS DAUGHTER. 
 
 Lear.—"- To deal plainly, 
 
 I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 
 
 Methinks I should know you, and know this man ; 
 
 Yet I am doubtful ; for I am mainly ignorant 
 
 What place this is, * 
 
 Do not laugh at me, 
 For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
 To be my child Cordelia." 
 
 Cordelia.— 1 ' I am, I am." 
 
 Shakspeare.— King Lear. 
 
 The concluding observation of Granville, though no more than 
 just and no more than what I should have made myself, was bitter 
 to my feelings. I resolved, however, for the twentieth time, to take 
 
206 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 his advice, and return immediately to Oxford, without trusting my- 
 self to seek another interview with Mr. Hastings. 
 
 This resolution, firm as it was, was overthrown in a moment, by 
 that gentleman's sending a servant to beg I would call upon him. 
 To refuse, I thought, would not only be ungrateful, but the height 
 of incivility, and, in his situation, unfeeling and barbarous. I went, 
 therefore, and with a hurried step. I found him collected and re- 
 signed, but his bodily feelings much worn. He had been exceed- 
 ingly agitated by an inquest that had been held on his dead son, 
 though, as there was no positive evidence either of the duel or the 
 cause of quarrel, many of the distressing particulars were avoided : 
 there was no manner of doubt that the death was occasioned by 
 Lord Albany's hand ; yet, as Mr. Hastings was most scrupulous in 
 refusing to prosecute, and even in withholding all information 
 which he could keep back, the verdict was general, namely, death 
 by a pistol shot, but by whom fired did not appear. 
 
 This being over, there remained the question of the funeral, 
 which Granville had exerted his utmost to persuade Mr. Hastings 
 to leave to him, and himself to retire to Foljambe. But the father 
 asserted himself, and refused to be spared the melancholy task. He 
 held it a duty, he said, which he owed to the God who had only 
 properly struck him, to shew his resignation to His will, by bow- 
 ing over the grave of the son who had been taken from him. 
 
 He had desired Granville to attend him in this last office ; and it 
 was to ask me, as one who had shewn such attachment to the lost 
 Foljambe ( spite of ill usage ) to join him in the same attention, that 
 he had sent for me. " It will be a consolation to me," said the af- 
 flicted old man, " to shew how little I thought you deserved the 
 unjust treatment you received 5 and if such a supposition may be 
 indulged, I please myself in thinking, that the unhappy boy him- 
 self may know and approve it." 
 
 I was greatly affected, and felt that what Granville had repre- 
 sented to me of the real piety of his uncle, was no more than true. 
 It may be supposed that my return to Oxford was postponed. 
 
 I will not re-open the affliction I underwent at the ceremony, by 
 touching upon its details furlher than to say, that the firmness and 
 resignation, mingled wilh deep sorrow, shewn by this wounded 
 father, commanded the admiration of all. His bearing, naturally so 
 lofty, seemed indeed bowed to the earth, but in a manner still 
 comparatively dignified, and evidently evincing, that he succumbed 
 to a being who he felt, if He afflicted him, had done so in mercy. 
 In short, he was an example of the resigned confidence of the Psal- 
 mist — " It is good for me to have been in trouble, that I may learn 
 thy statutes. " 
 
 Nevertheless his misery was abundant, and at last alarming; for, 
 on his return to the hotel, he remained long on his couch, in a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 207 
 
 fixed stupor, without uttering a word, though we all tried to obtain 
 his notice, in order to divert him from himself. 
 
 Sandford watched for tears, and endeavoured to excite them, as 
 the best chance of restoring him, by talking of his son, but in vain; 
 his slate continued unaltered, and Sandford began to be seriously 
 uneasy. " If we can produce no vent for his grief, 1 ' said he, "I 
 will not answer for the consequences. It is a pity his daughter is 
 not here, if indeed he could know her." 
 
 Granville caught at this, and asked, u Would you advise sending 
 for her?" 
 
 u I would," said Sandford, " though whom to send to break the 
 necessity for her presence, without oversetting her too, I know not. 
 Has she no female relation with her?" 
 
 " None," returned Granville. 
 
 " Could you not undertake the mission yourself?" 
 
 " Willingly, if you will instruct me how and what to report." 
 
 " Then lose no time," concluded Sandford : "for this is a case 
 of mind, and beyond my art." 
 
 In fine, horses were ordered, and, as it was but five miles, we 
 hoped to see him in an hour, with the lovely being whose presence 
 and attentions gave the only hope of recovering her father from 
 the alarming syncope that seemed to have bound him in a chain 
 of iron. 
 
 During the interval between Granville's departure and return, 
 we were so much engaged in watching Mr. Hastings that I could 
 hardly attend to my own feelings, occasioned by the expectation of 
 the impending arrival. All I know was, that, between the thought 
 of father and daughter, I was in a tremor of exciiement. 
 
 Sandford had bled his patient, which seemed to have some effect, 
 for he opened his eyes and breathed somewhat more freely, but still 
 with scarce a sign of restored sense -, and we earnestly watched the 
 roll of every carriage we heard, in the hope of what alone, in the 
 surgeon's opinion, would rouse his patient from his present dan- 
 gerous stale. 
 
 When the chaise did arrive, and Granville led in his interesting 
 charge, my own senses seemed to stand in need of support. Never 
 shall I forget, never cease to admire, the demeanour of this perfect 
 young woman. 
 
 Having been fully instructed by Granville as to the case, and the 
 necessity of exciting, if possible, the sensibilities of her father, in 
 order to produce the return of his mind, she perfectly comprehended* 
 what was expected from her, and that her own self-possession must * 
 not give way. Distressed, therefore, but not overwhelmed, struggling 
 with the uneasy feeling that she was acting under the observation of 
 others, yet overcoming it for the sake of the person most dear to 
 her, and to whom she owed ail reverence, the energy as well as filial 
 
208 DE CLIFFORD • 
 
 piety of this excellent creature shone out in a manner to fill us all 
 with admiration. 
 
 She trembled as she advanced to the couch where her parent lay, 
 but instantly assumed the presence of mind of a nurse, applying all 
 the stimulants given her for the purpose, with perfect collected- 
 ness, only interrupting the process at intervals with tender appeals 
 to his notice, if he could hear them 5 murmuring in tender accents, 
 while her lips touched his cheek, Ci Do you not know me, father ? 
 I am your own Bertha. Will you not wake for her sake ? " and then 
 would tears fall fast, bedewing his face as well as her own. 
 
 These, together with the whisperings of her name into his ears, 
 had an effect (a feeble one), but such as the remedies used had failed 
 in producing. By slow (very slow) degrees, the fixed look of his 
 eyes relaxed, and he began to sigh. The sigh affected Bertha, and 
 she looked fearfully distressed $ nor is there perhaps a more heart- 
 breaking thing to a devoted daughter than the sigh of deep-seated 
 grief from the breast of a beloved parent. She began to be overcome 
 by it, tillSandford assured her that it was the very best symptom that 
 could be shewn of returning sense, This immediately cheered her, 
 and she renewed her attentions, again whispering her name, and en- 
 treating her father to speak to her. Nor was the effort at last in 
 vain 5 it was indeed blessed 5 for his deadened eye began to shew 
 lustre as he fixed it upon her, and in a tremulous voice he asked, 
 "Where am I? I know not this room, or who is talking. Yet I 
 should say it was Bertha, if Bertha were here." 
 
 Bertha replied, with sobs of joy, " I am — I am," — and fell upon 
 his cheek. 
 
 It had its effect, for he asked, "Is it really my child?" and by 
 his fond caress he shewed that he knew her, and that his mind had 
 returned. 
 
 Sandford now came forward in his directorial capacity ; he had 
 prepared a stimulating cordial for his patient, which he gave to be 
 administered by Bertha's hand 5 observing, however, that she her- 
 self had been, and still was, a belter cordial than all the art of medi- 
 cine could supply, and lhal the very best thing he could now do was 
 to leave her and her father together, if only for a few minutes. 
 " The pulse," said he, " is still low, but will soon be higher with 
 such a nurse. It is quiet now lhat is most wanted. I will myself 
 retire, but only into the next room, so that I shall be at hand." 
 
 With this he left the room, and took Granville and me along 
 with him. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 209 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 METY OF MR. HASTINGS, AND ITS IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCES TO ME. 
 
 And now and then an ample tear trill'd down 
 Her delicate cheek. It seem'd she was a queen 
 Over her passion, who, most rebel like, 
 Sought to be king o'er her. 
 
 You have seen 
 Sunshine and rain at once. 
 
 Those happy smiles 
 That played on her ripe lip seem'd not to know 
 What guests were in her eyes. 
 
 In brief, sorrow 
 Would be a rarity most beloved, if all 
 Gould so become it. 
 
 Shakspeare.— King Lear. 
 Thy sins are visited in this poor child. 
 
 King John. 
 
 Didst ever hear a man so penitent? 
 
 2 Henry VI. 
 
 During all this time I have said nothing of the feelings called up 
 by the arrival of this amiable being to the aid of her sinking parent. 
 That she was only more attractive than ever under such a character 
 may be imagined. In truth, she so absorbed us all by the presenta- 
 tion it made us of female merit in perhaps the loveliest character it 
 exhibits, filial tenderness and duty, that, keen as were my sensations 
 on my own account, their interest sank to nothing, even with my- 
 self, in comparison with that of the scene I have described. For not 
 even as a wife does a woman shew belter, or perhaps so well, as 
 when fulfilling the tender duties of love and reverence due to the 
 author of her being. How does not such a picture enhance and 
 heighten even the loveliest beauty ! 
 
 Safely may I say that this was so with Bertha. The deep mourn- 
 ing she wore only the more set off the delicacy of her complexion ; 
 but joined to the sentiment inspired by her whole demeanour in 
 this affecting scene, all I ever felt for her was augmented ten thou- 
 sand fold. 
 
 I watched to observe whether she recognised me 5 but she was too 
 completely absorbed by her father to give any sign of it. On our re- 
 turn to the room it was different. 
 
 We found Mr. Hastings much restored as to sense and anima- 
 tion, though greatly enfeebled as to strength. His daughter was on 
 her knees before him, chafing his hands, which, however, ever and 
 anon, he disengaged from hers, placing them upon her head, and 
 blessing her. On our entrance she arose, and exhibited in her coun- 
 tenance such a mixture of joy and anxiety (though of anxiety re- 
 1. 14 
 
210 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 lieved), as would have been irresistible in the plainest female so em- 
 ployed ; what in her? 
 
 With the self-possession which never abandoned her, she thanked 
 Mr. Sandford for sending for her. f 4 It would have broke my heart," 
 said she, "had I been left in ignorance, and not have been allowed 
 to come. But, thank God, he is quite well now." 
 
 Sandford smiled, and observed, " Not quite yet ; but will be, I 
 trust :" and Mr. Hastings, having gathered strength, said, "How 
 can I ever thank these friends enough ? Bertha must do it for me." 
 
 He then asked her if she had seen her old friend, (meaning me), 
 adding, 44 He has been very good in coming so far for our sakes, 
 and did not, I see, abandon me under this last visitation. You must 
 thank him for me." 
 
 The frank girl immediately stretched out her hand, and said, in 
 her sweetest accents, 64 O.I I. do indeed thank Mr. De Clifford for 
 more than this — his kindness to " 
 
 But here a faltering voice, and tears, which indeed had never 
 been thoroughly suppressed amid all her joy at having recovered 
 her father, prevented further utterance. Words, however, were 
 not necessary to create in me a bliss I had not for a long lime 
 known, not merely because I was allowed to press her offered 
 hand, in token of the thanks which her father himself, to my sur- 
 prise, quite as much as my pleasure, had commissioned her to ex- 
 press. What joy was in that moment ! 
 
 But now, Mr. Sandford resuming the command, advised the pa- 
 tient's retiring to bed. 44 It is repose," said he, 44 after most sad 
 agitation, that he chiefly wants, and if he can get sleep, to which I 
 would add any mild sustenance he may fancy, he will do very well. 
 I will look in at midnight to see that every thing is right, and mean- 
 time, request of you, my excellent young lady, neither to alarm nor 
 exhaust yourself in watching. The paroxysm over, I have no fears 
 for his bodily health. For mental comfort (the best of all), I can 
 only recommend you to a higher Power." 
 
 Mr. Hastings was too weak to answer, but shewed by an inclina- 
 tion of his head, and a deep sigh, that he fully agreed with what 
 Sandford had said ; and Bertha, on the latter taking leave, gave him 
 a look of mournful gratitude ; and then, wishing Granville and me 
 good night, the door closed upon what seemed to me all the in- 
 terests I had in the world. 
 
 As Granville and I lodged in the same inn, we passed the even- 
 ing together, and had much talk 44 This sad event," said he, 
 44 mournful as it is, will perhaps eventually be better for my uncle's 
 happiness. It was plain to me that poor Foljambe's irreclaimable 
 violence of spirit would have ruined his father's peaceful habits of 
 retired self-consequence. In this he had wrapt himself up for some 
 years, and hence, seldom stirring from his domain, where he was 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 the deity of the place, 4 sole monarch of all he surveyed,' he allowed 
 (he world to pass as it listed, provided it gave him no disturbance. 
 He lived indeed in that easy negligence which, as Johnson says of 
 Sir Roger de Coverley, solitary grandeur naturally generates. This, 
 however, was not wholesome as a cure for his family pride, which 
 grew upon him the more for living alone, and being free from the 
 rivalry of upstarts, whom he could not bear. He preferred, indeed, 
 a man who derived from the times of the Plantagenets, though with 
 scarce bread to eat, to a millionnaire who sprang from a South Sea 
 bubble. Hence, I verily believe," added Granville, 44 his condes- 
 censions to you 5 so don't flatter yourself that it is your own indivi- 
 dual merit that has obtained them. There is, however, another rea- 
 son, quite as powerful, in his strong religious feeling, which, you 
 must have observed, has actuated him throughout this severe 
 trial." 
 
 44 But how can that," asked I, interested by these observations, 
 44 influence his condescensions to me? " 
 
 44 Why, see you not that his deep sense of Christian duty, al- 
 ways warring with his pride, perpetually fills him with remorse 
 and humility •, and when this is the case, he considers it a bounden 
 duty to take amends twenty-fold to all those whom he, or even his 
 son, may have slighted, for what, unlike a real proud man, he 
 considers a sin requiring punishment. That punishment he thinks 
 has now deservedly fallen upon him by the death (made more mi- 
 serable for the manner of it) of the only heir of his name, to whom, 
 with all his faults, he was tenderly attached. He is alive to all his 
 son's wrongs to you, the greater because of your fidelity to him ; 
 and in his sincere submission to what he feels the justice of heaven, 
 it consoles him in his grief to make up to you the kindness in 
 which Foljambe was so deficient. In this, and only for the same 
 reasons, I have no doubt he is seconded by his daughter 5 and I 
 tell you this to guard you from those self-flatteries which might 
 otherwise, with all your fine resolutions, assail you." 
 
 44 1 thank you," said I (I am afraid, rather dryly), 44 for this cau- 
 tion;" and I was not sorry that our retiring for the night put an 
 end to the conversation. 
 
 When alone, I revolved with fearful interest all the incidents of 
 this eventful day. Both the father and daughter became more than 
 ever the objects, the one of my study, the other of my admiration. 
 The religious resignation of Mr. Hastings, and the sweet filial piety, 
 mixed with decision of conduct, in Bertha, occupied all my recol- 
 lections as well as all my reasoning faculties, so that I could not 
 rest. I was tossed in a sea of doubt as to what attentions Mr. Has- 
 tings might still permit himself to shew me, and if shewn, whether 
 I ought to accept them. If I did, and particularly if I ever found 
 myself again within the atmosphere of Foljambe Park, 1 felt I was 
 
212 
 
 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 lost for ever ; for this new position in which I had seen her, only 
 made me more than ever the lover of goodness and of Bertha. 
 
 On the other hand, the intimations by Granville as to the effect 
 of Mr. Hastings 1 religious feelings (perhaps fears) upon his con- 
 sciousness of the sin of pride, worked upon my sanguine temper, 
 so that I actually thought it within a possibility that I might again 
 be the approved inmate of Bertha's paternal home. 
 
 It never occurred to me that there was another and safer alter- 
 native, in returning, by a noble effort of resolution, the very next 
 day to Oxford. The result was that I fled from decision, and resolved 
 to trust to the chapter of accidents ; perhaps, on some occasions, as 
 good an ally as we can have. 
 
 One thing was clear, that I could not leave York without again 
 waiting upon these two interesting friends 5 in which opinion Gran- 
 ville himself, when I consulted him next morning, concurred-, and 
 having previously sent inquiries, and found that the sufferers had 
 passed a good night, we set out after breakfast, Granville to pay duty 
 and offer services, I to submit to whatever doom might be awarded 
 me by the new ally I have mentioned. 
 
 What this ally meant yet to do I could not tell, but it was evident, 
 from the hurry and movement we found among Mr. Hastings' 
 people, that the present state of things was not the order of the day. 
 
 Mr. Hastings was so much recovered, and Bertha so anxious to 
 give him the comforts of home, that after having consulted Sand- 
 ford, who thought the temporary access he had suffered had sub- 
 sided, and that there was no danger, it was resolved to move home- 
 ward that very morning. 
 
 Thus I was like an ill-fated mariner, who, after being tempest- 
 tost, and gratified with the sight of port, is suddenly blown off, and 
 driven again to sea. Granville was, of course, to accompany them; 
 and as for me, I had nothing left but to express all wishes for their 
 welfare, and to announce that in a few hours I should be on the 
 way to Oxford. 
 
 Bertha said nothing, but, as I thought, looked significantly at 
 her father, who then asked me if this was in consequence of college 
 duty, or only my own wish. " If the first," said he, u I can have 
 nothing to observe 5 but if you are not obliged to return, I own I 
 should be sorry to part so soon with a young gentleman of so good 
 a name, who always shewed so much kindness to my poor son, 
 and lately so much interest about myself. For the first I fear he 
 was but ill requited $ to requite the last may not, I hope, be beyond 
 our power." 
 
 I observed Bertha's eyes looked down at these words, yet as if 
 they were not unexpected. Granville looked surprised, and I myself 
 knew not how to look, except that I believe I looked very much 
 like a fool. But as Mr. Hastings evidently waited my answer, I 
 
OR, THE CON ST A INT MAN. 
 
 213 
 
 hesitatingly stammered out that my leave of absence was confined 
 to no particular day. 
 
 "Then come with us," said Mr. Hastings; " there is just a 
 place in the carriage for you, and God knows I have sufficient need 
 of real friends not to lose them if I can help it." 
 
 He said this with a sigh, and Bertha, with a suppressed and 
 trembling voice, as if to herself, observed, "I am sure he was a 
 real friend to him who is gone." 
 
 " You will then come with us?" continued Mr. Hastings, looking 
 for my answer. 
 
 My heart was full, and I could only bow a loo willing consent. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 I AGAIN VISIT FOLJAMBE PAHK. 
 
 Heaven keep your honour safe. Amen ! 
 
 Shakspeare.— Measure for Measure. 
 
 Whoever has read me thus far, may be able to imagine my 
 feelings when once again visiting a place which was the most loved 
 object of my memory, and where my young mind had first seemed 
 to know what it was to live. 
 
 When we arrived at the gates, how different were my feelings 
 from those with which I first saw them opened to let in a view of 
 what I thought Paradise ! How did my heart thrill when I saw and 
 remembered the spot ( never indeed forgotten) where the youthful 
 Bertha bounded into the arms of her brother, that brother now no 
 more, and all her charming vivacity beat down and subdued by her 
 recent and unlooked-for misfortune. All about her and about the 
 place, then gaiety itself, was now in deep mourning. Yet was she 
 only still more lovely, for the interest which this threw into her 
 every look and gesture, occupied, however, far more with her father 
 than herself. 
 
 Mr. Hastings seemed more easy as he entered his home, fondly 
 embracing Bertha as she led him through the hall to his cabinet, 
 and while tears dropt fast, forcing a smile when she said "My dear, 
 dear father, you will still be happy, please God." 
 
 " Yes ! said he with emphasis, " please God." 
 
 He then shook hands with Granville and me, and shut himself 
 up with his daughter, now his only — always his greatest — comfort. 
 Presently, however, she came out again, though only for a mo- 
 ment, to say her father begged us to consider ourselves masters of 
 the place till he was fitter to make us welcome. She then returned 
 
214 
 
 DK CLIFFORD ; 
 
 lo him, nor did we see them again till dinner-time, several hours 
 afterwards. 
 
 "A most extraordinary position this for you, my good friend," 
 said Granville, as we walked into the park. 
 
 " I can scarcely believe it myself," replied I, " nor do I know 
 whether I have done well or ill." 
 
 " 111, be assured," said he; " and I again say, 'Experto crede 
 Roberto."" 
 
 "You think, then, I have run wilfully into danger?" 
 
 " You have run into the cannon's mouth," said Granville. 
 
 "I can but die,'' I answered; and we walked on in a sort of 
 cloudy silence, which was for some time without interruption. 
 
 At length, and as if he had continued the conversation in his own 
 mind, Granville resumed, "If you had ever been encouraged; if 
 you had ever ascertained whether she had any, and what feeling 
 towards you, so as to have given a gleam— a glimmering of light to 
 conduct you ! But to falter on voluntarily in darkness, with neither 
 prospect nor clue — oh, the infatuation — the madness ! to say no- 
 thing of the dishonour, even if you could succeed ! " 
 
 "Hold!" said I, with agitation; "there at least I am invul- 
 nerable. Could I think Miss Hastings gave me one tender thought 
 — one feeling that distinguished me from the rest of mankind — I 
 could leave her for ever, and live upon that thought for life. I 
 could watch her at a distance, and rejoice in her happiness with 
 another who was worthy. But this is all; 4 This is the head and 
 front of my offending ; ' as well as of my ambition. As to address 
 her in form would be insanity, so to endeavour secretly to seduce 
 her affections, even, as you say, if I could succeed, would be as far 
 from my endeavour as abhorrent lo my principles." 
 
 " Nobly said, and sincerely, I have no doubt," returned Gran- 
 ville. "We shall see how principles and practice accord." And 
 we again walked on in silence. 
 
 In a few minutes he continued — "It is evident that you have 
 achieved much with the father, and you will, no doubt, renew your 
 juvenile intimacy with the daughter. Neither of them is insensible 
 (which is in your favour with the father at least) lo your claims to 
 a high and ancient descent, however obscured by present circum- 
 stances ; and those circumstances there is now no influential volary 
 of high life at their elbow, to mark with contempt or hold up lo 
 disdain." 
 
 "And what of all this? 1 ' asked I, with some emotion, for I did 
 not like the seeming insinuation. 
 
 " That your principles," returned he, " will be put to trial, and 
 your philosophy exposed to danger. Your prudence, however, 
 will, I am persuaded, triumph, and you will retreat before you are 
 absolutely ruined. Pray heaven you may, and that itbe not loo late." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 215 
 
 Though I was persuaded that all this was said in a spirit of 
 friendship, yet I liked not its lone. It seemed ironical, almost 
 taunting ; certainly less kind than his usual manner. It was appa- 
 rent that my translation, as he called it, to Foljambe Park, had not 
 given him pleasure. I did not suspect him of being one of those 
 counsellors so jealous of their own wisdom that they would rather 
 a friend suffered than their prophecy be defeated ; but I did begin 
 to suspect (for the very first time, and at a great distance, but still 
 to suspect) that he had not lately trusted himself so much with his 
 cousin for nothing. In short, deeply in love myself, how could I 
 be surprised if this susceptible, warm, and imaginative man should 
 be also a stricken deer, wounded by the same shaft that had pierced 
 me? This I frankly told him, and watched the effect with anxiety. 
 
 He received it, as I thought, strangely, though not with indif- 
 ference : for after uttering the name of Bertha two or three limes, 
 as if surprised, he shook his head; then, as if recollecting himself, 
 said with a smile, " How delightfully, if I were so inclined, could 
 I play upon and torment your feelings! How put you to the proof 
 of your professions, by telling you your suspicions were right, and 
 that I am not only the rival you think me, but likely to succeed. 
 It is well for me that the fashion of wearing swords is gone, else 
 upon such a declaration, and in so retired a spot, with no witnesses 
 but the deer, what dangers should I not run. However, c mark how 
 a plain tale shall put you down,'— if I ought not ralher to fear it 
 might put you up, in your jealousy for your mistress's power, — 
 when I tell you that I can see her, speak to her, serve her, admire 
 and revere her, and yet, for reasons best known to myself, lake the 
 liberty of not loving her." 
 
 "Astonishing! " said I. 
 
 "Not so much so as your unreasonableness, " answered he. 
 "For it seems with you, there is but one Bertha in the world, and 
 her you would very modestly appropriate to yourself." 
 
 The sting of this reply was lost in the joy I felt that my fears were 
 groundless, and so I told him, though I could not help adding, 
 "your invulnerability to her must be owing to your being wounded 
 elsewhere." 
 
 "Of course," replied he, and, as I thought, he reddened ; " for, 
 otherwise, how would it be possible to resist her, or escape ven- 
 geance from you for doing so? Pray observe the justice of all this. 
 Your blood is resolved to be up one way or the other. If I am a rival, 
 I must fight for being so •, if not, for not doing proper homage to 
 her charms. It is well that my Lord De Clifford is not Lord Herbert 
 of Cherbury, and that chivalry is over. I should else fare but ill. 
 However, you are fond of Waller, I believe, and sometimes relish 
 his delicate thoughts and nice little turns. Perhaps you may re- 
 member Sacharissa and Amorel ? 
 
216 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 * When gentle Amoret complains, 
 I have sense of all her pains ; 
 But for Sacharissa I 
 Do not only grieve, but die.' 
 
 "Now pray, may not a Sacharissa prevent me from thinking more 
 of Bertha than if she were an Amoret ? " 
 
 I need not say that I endured— nay, was pleased at this raillery, 
 because it assured me so pointedly that my fears were without cause. 
 Yet I would have given something to have been told the reasons, 
 best known to himself, which clothed him in such armour of 
 proof against the power of Bertha; in short, whether he had, and 
 who was his Sacharissa. As he did not, however, offer to tell me, I 
 did not presume to ask him, thinking a time might come when I 
 should discover, or he reveal it. 
 
 We continued our walk, therefore, in renewed amity, for I was 
 now convinced that the expostulations he urged, on the madness 
 and danger of my headlong indulgence of delight in being near 
 Bertha, were all founded in real and pure regard. And, truth to say, 
 when he, in more free and forcible language than he had ever ye! 
 used, represented how visionary it was to suppose that a person who 
 had his bread to seek by long dependance upon the rich and great, 
 could come forward like a rich and great one himself, and expect to 
 be treated as such, either by father or daughter, I was without 
 power to reply. 
 
 "Mr. Hastings," said he, "constitutionally proud, though also 
 naturally pious, and softened by his present affliction, seeks to make 
 up to you the injustice of his son. He has not a suspicion that, in 
 doing sro, he is setting fire to a train, which he does not think exists. 
 And as to Bertha herself, with all her softness, has she not, in her 
 resistance to Sier brother's imputations, given sufficient proof that 
 she is not a person to be lightly thought of, either on the score of 
 dignity or prudence? The very frankness with which she expresses 
 her esteem for you, and her sense of obligation for the interest you 
 have taken, demonstrate at once how totally free she is from all 
 thought of your attachment, much more of her returning it in the 
 slightest degree. This very visit, planned between father and 
 daughter, to shew their sense of your attention to them on the mosJ 
 melancholy occasion of their lives, shews also how totally free both 
 of them are from any notion of the feeling which animates you, or 
 of her approving it, should it ever be known." 
 
 Devoted lover as I was, this sensible representation, I own, sank 
 deep within me, and blighted all those little buds of hope and joy 
 which, I knew not why, I had suffered to charm me, in consequence 
 of finding myself, by express invitation, once more on this happy 
 soil. That it was the direct contrary of what I had in my sanguine 
 temper thought it, fully appeared from Granville's forcible remark 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 217 
 
 upon it. I owned it so to him, and asked his advice upon the conduct 
 to pursue. 
 
 "Fly," said he, "if it were possible, this instant 5 but as that 
 cannot well be, to-morrow. To remain, is to taste of a poisoned 
 banquet — to drink of the goblet of Comus — to be lost in the garden 
 of Armida. Your excuse is easy : the necessity of returning to 
 Oxford/' 
 
 "Give me time to reflect by myself, and let me leave you," said 
 I, walking away ; and I plunged into the thickest part of the park. 
 
 Here, for the hundredth time, I took myself to task 5 and, for the 
 hundredth time, worked myself up to a resolution to play the hero; 
 in fact, to take leave of Bertha and love, and devote myself to the 
 world. "Upon the whole," said I, "I have gained by this visit. 1 
 have shewn myself superior to resentment against a friend who had 
 used me ill 5 have discharged a duly of respect to his suffering 
 family, and have at least conciliated their kindness and esteem more 
 than I ever had done before. This ought and shall satisfy me 5 " and 
 I resolved to quit Foljambe the next day. 
 
 Who, however, can foresee or control his fate ? The agitation of 
 the last few days had committed inroads on my weak frame, which, 
 as I have related, was never strong j and my peculiar temperament, 
 as may have appeared, was sensitive to a degree, particularly when 
 operated upon by mental impressions. I had often made efforts 
 before to conquer this powerful passion, but never when the object 
 of it was so close to my vision. To see this young and beautiful 
 creature, both her beauty and her character set off in tenfold at- 
 traction by the sweetness and self-command she exhibited towards 
 her parent, a personification of filial piety (perhaps the holiest of 
 female virtues)— to do this, and conquer in the struggle, without 
 the severest suffering, was impossible. Bertha's endeavour to infuse 
 cheerfulness into her father, by appearing cheerful herself, shewed 
 her in more beautiful colours than any in which she had yet ap- 
 peared. Her attentions to him during and after the dinner, her 
 smiles, and the pleasure she evinced when they succeeded, as they 
 often did, in soothing him, made her appear an angel of light. Nor 
 was she of less use to him in diverting his attention from a seeming 
 trouble brought upon him by a large packet of letters, sent him 
 through the Hanover mission in London, from Germany. It arrived 
 just as the dessert came upon table, and, in some excitement, he 
 would have retired with it to his study, but she said, with winning 
 persuasion, 
 
 "Not now, dearest father; there is nothing in it, I am sure, 
 that will not wait till to-morrow, and I won't let your comfort at 
 home be so soon disturbed. Heaven knows, you have need enough 
 for it, so give me this naughty packet. I will put it away, and you 
 shall promise me not to look at it till to-morrow. 1 ' 
 
218 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 So saying, she almost playfully took the packet from his not un- 
 willing hand — for, in truth, he seemed little equal to business — 
 and retired with it alone. 
 
 The immense seal, teeming with arms and supporters, with an 
 ample ducal coronet above, denoted whence the packet came. 
 
 ' ; Prince Adolphus, I suppose?" said Granville-, to which Mr. 
 Hastings assented. 
 
 This revived my recollections of his German connections, almost 
 forgotten * and I supposed Prince Adolphus was one of his illustrious 
 relations of the faderland. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 1 DISCOVER MORE AND MORE OF BERTHA'S BEAUTIFUL CHARACTER ; BUT, 
 THROUGH BLAMABLE CURIOSITY, I AM PUNISHED FOR IT. 
 
 Sir, there lies such secrets in this farthel and box, as none must know but the king. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Winter's Tale. 
 
 If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me. 
 
 Twelfth Night. 
 
 The filial sweetness shewn by Bertha in comforting and soothing 
 the grief of her afflicted parent, and her firmness while so oc- 
 cupied, in suppressing her own, only made me feel more and more 
 devoted to her-, and, being so, more than ever desponding, as to 
 my recovery. I found that Granville was right, and that the proxi- 
 mity occasioned by being in the same house with her did me harm. 
 I wished I had not come, grew confused, and longed to retire from 
 the table. To recover myself, therefore, as soon as we rose I sallied 
 out alone, to breathe the freshness of that garden where once I had 
 been the companion of her little labours. 
 
 Alas ! the remembrance of this, though it gave me pleasure, was 
 far from relieving me. Still less did my cure progress, when I 
 entered the summer-house which I formerly described as decorated 
 with the armorial bearings of her maternal ancestors. This was, in 
 summer time, a sort of supplementary common room, in addition 
 to the great saloon, for those of the family or guests who preferred 
 its airiness (for it had windows on all sides), and its proximity to 
 (he flower-garden, to assemble and adopt any little amusement that 
 might present itself. Hence it was furnished with different musical 
 instruments ; and on the walls were many maps, and in the window- 
 seats whole files of newspapers— so that it was as often called the 
 cassino as the summer-house. 
 
 When I first entered, what struck me most was a bust, in the 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 219 
 
 purest Parian marble, of a most beautiful woman, of commanding, 
 yet soft, and even playful features. It spoke sense, spirituality, no- 
 bleness, and gentleness at the same time— youth wilhal — and was a 
 fit pendant for Bertha herself, had there also been one of her. 
 
 The name of " Honora, Viscountess Hungerford," was inscribed 
 on this bust I supposed it some friend or relation of the family. 
 There was also, over the chimney, an engraving in a gold frame, 
 of a handsome young officer (from his mustachios apparently 
 foreign), in a hussar dress, about twenty or one-and-lwenly years 
 of age. The name here inscribed was "Prince Adolphus of Saxe 
 Eisenach." In another frame, to match it, were the same arms as 
 were over the door on the outside, blazoned in beautiful, dazzling 
 colours, evidently by the hand of a herald. 
 
 " The family at least seem not to undervalue this alliance," said 
 I to myself 5 yet I thought it might be only a fair compliment to the 
 princess, Bertha's mother ; and, as to the young hussar, what more 
 natural than to hang up the picture of a handsome cousin in a cas- 
 sino? 
 
 Bertha often, nay daily, visited this room, and generally con- 
 ducted her friends there. She also placed the authors she might be 
 in the course of reading on a large table, which took up almost one 
 side of the interior. In the midst of them an ample album, su- 
 perbly bound, containing many extracts from works in print, and 
 some in manuscript in different hands, courted notice by a display 
 of its open, well-filled leaves. 
 
 As an open album seemed free to all the world, I without scruple 
 began to read. I found it full of sweet proofs of the elegance of the 
 taste of its owner, and of the cultivation of a natural, polished, and 
 refined mind. Judge of my pleasure, however, when almost the 
 first thing that met my eye was my own stanzas, "The Lover's 
 Hope," and the pathetic lament of Helena, which we had canvassed 
 with so much interest by the side of the brook at York. 
 
 What sensations, what associations did not this recall? And what 
 wonder if all my interest was excited to trace still farther the feel- 
 ings of this sweet mind, in the different moral or poetical passages 
 of different writers which it had thought it worth while thus to 
 collect. 
 
 I could willingly myself fill another book with them ; but suffice 
 it that all the selections in the collection exhibited a justness, I may 
 say, a holiness of feeling, and a classic taste, that to me were en- 
 chanting. What I particularly observed was, that they were all 
 from masters \ no second-rale name was to be found : a sure sign 
 how well directed had been her studies. 
 
 I was pleased to see much from Milton. One passage from Co- 
 mus was so scored with marks of approbation, and indicated so 
 much virtuous thought, that I cannot help transcribing it from 
 
22*) DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 memory. It is (he answer of the Lady to the sophistry of the En- 
 chanter : 
 
 " Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature, 
 As if she would her children should be riotous 
 With her abundance. 
 If every just man that now pines in want 
 Had but a moderate and beseeming share 
 Of that which lewdly pampered luxury 
 Now heaps upon some few with vast excess, 
 Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed, 
 And she no whit encumbered with her store, 
 And then the giver would be better thanked.' 1 
 
 Milton seemed a great favourite, and among other extracts from 
 him, was the sonnet in the Nativity, on May Morning :-— 
 
 " Now the bright Morning Star, day's harbinger, 
 Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her 
 The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
 The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. 
 Hail ! bounteous May ! " 
 
 This was in the holy verse of Milton 5 take other passages, of a 
 still sweeter character, in prose, but from what author did not ap- 
 pear. Indeed they were not embodied in the book itself, but were 
 written with other extracts on a loose sheet, left (as if carelessly) 
 among the pages - and I own that what with their beauty, and what 
 with the thought that they were a transcript of Bertha's mind, I 
 could not resist the desire to copy them. 
 
 Concluding, therefore, that Mr. Hastings would not in his pre- 
 sent situation be left during any part of the evening by his daugh- 
 ter or nephew, I seized a pen {her pen as I thriilingly felt when X 
 grasped it) and copied what was entitled 
 
 " The Lord's Day." 
 
 It ran thus : — 
 
 "Never shall I forget the impression made on my heart this 
 morning, by the union of personal feelings of pleasure with piety 
 of mind, occasioned by the idea of the day. The scene was the 
 fresh field bordering on the garden 5 the air mild and genial-, the 
 dews sweetening every daisy, primrose, and cowslip, and indeed 
 every blade of grass. But there was also a stillness exercising an 
 indescribable influence over the soul. The tranquillity was more 
 soothing than any I had ever before experienced. It seemed as if 
 the whole creation had borne testimony to the propriety of its ap- 
 pellation of a day of rest. It certainly appeared to be enjoyed even 
 by the animals around me as well as myself. The cattle had all 
 lain down, and even the lambs, usually so frolic, were nestled by 
 their mothers' sides. The birds were silent, and a numerous poultry 
 were perched in repose on the bars of a fence which separated a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 221 
 
 haystack, full of fragrance, from the field. The quiet was so uni- 
 versal that every thing seemed afraid to disturb it; the very bees 
 had ceased to hum. I felt it in my mind and in my nerves; in my 
 senses and in my thoughts : for all, all, were at peace. My father 
 had blessed me with peculiar fervour that morning, and my heart 
 dilated with joy and gratitude. The soothing, indeed, which I felt 
 all over me, brought me at once to heaven. It is God, said I, that 
 has made me thus susceptible. It is His bounty that I should thus 
 feel. And feel it I did more and more tenderly, as well as more 
 gratefully, when I said with an emotion worth a world, 
 
 " This is the Lord's Day." 
 
 The other and shorter extract, the possession of which I coveted, 
 was headed, 
 
 u Self- Approbation. 
 
 " Yes I one self-approving hour, though retired from the gaze 
 and acclamations of the world, is worth ail that the pomp and glory 
 of that world can confer. It refreshes the heart, though in the deep- 
 est seclusion, even in the solitude of the night, when no one sees 
 us but our Maker. How sweet then is true religion, when, not 
 merely the offspring of the understanding and reason, but the ef- 
 fusion of a grateful heart, worshipping from love ! In sickness and 
 sorrow, under misfortune and mortification, its voice, conveyed by 
 this self-approbation, consoles and supports. It is really that 
 ' medicine which ministers to a diseased mind, and plucks a rooted 
 sorrow from the memory.' " 
 
 O Bertha ! how did I feel these beautiful sentiments, the indica- 
 tions of your own natural and blameless heart! How more than 
 ever did I love you for them ! Thus was that heart laid bare. Was 
 it possible to read such thoughts and such language without bless- 
 ing her? 
 
 There were other passages, from French and Italian writers, as 
 well as English, which portrayed her dear mind on other subjects 5 
 but I forbear : though I found from several articles, how much she 
 admired the simplicity of nature, and preferred it to all inflation 
 and meretricious ornament. One began with 
 
 " II naturale e sempre bello; " 
 
 another with 
 
 " Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law 
 My services are bound." 
 
 There was also a passage from Sevigne, which shewed her dis- 
 position well. 
 
 44 Pour moi, j'aime encore mieux le mal que le remede, et je 
 
222 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 trouve plus doux d'avoir de la peine a quitter les gens que j'aime, 
 que de ies aimer mediocrement." 
 
 01 kindest of creatures, thought I, if ever thou lovest, what will 
 not thy love be! 
 
 I hasten, however, to the last selection in the album, which was 
 in the form of a letter, in French ; whether a genuine letter, or only 
 an exercise, I could not tell, for it did not appear to whom it was 
 addressed, or by whom written, only in form it was headed, 
 
 "A MA CHERE MAMAN. 1 ' 
 
 As Bertha had no mother, this made me suppose it was a fiction, 
 and being in the open album, I classed it with the rest, and had the 
 less scruple to peruse it. It seemed to represent an answer to a 
 letter which had been received, and it ran thus : — 
 
 " Je ne doute point, chere Ma man, que le sejour de la campagne 
 ne vous soil ties utile. Le spectacle qu'on y decouvre excite les 
 reflexions ; la solitude qu'on y goute favorise les reveries. La terre 
 est un livre, explique par les physiciens, commente par les natu- 
 ralistes, et c'est Dieu lui-meme qui en est Tauteur. II a ecrit de sa 
 main ces merveilles qui ravissent la vue, et qui, sous mille diffe- 
 rentes couleurs, nous apprennent a connattre sa puissance et sa 
 majesle. Rien de plus agreabie que de s'egarer vers le soir dans 
 les magnifiques avenues dont vous faites si bien la description. 
 C'est la qu'on se forme une compagnie de sa memoire et de son 
 imagination. II semble alors que Tage d'or revient pas a pas, et 
 que loutes les passions sont endormies." 
 
 I was, as I have said, charmed with this picture of mind, for so 
 I reckoned it. Whether it was a real letter or not, I did not much 
 care; as I was convinced the feeling described was genuine; and 
 what was not my pleasure, to find my own favourite sentiments 
 thus glowing in the bosom of the being I loved best, and admired 
 most in all the earth! 
 
 It was time that I should leave this dangerous occupation, which 
 acted like a spell upon my vision and my faculties. It would have 
 been better for me never to have looked at it, or rather never to 
 have entered the summer-house. Certainly these proofs of one of 
 the most delightful and accomplished of minds, by no means weak- 
 ened the effect of the most lovely of persons. I therefore lore my- 
 self away, though i knew not where to go to escape from myself. 
 
 My musing took a thousand directions, and my feet almost as 
 many. There was not a path in the park which I did not explore, 
 the whole lime occupied with the one engrossing subject, so that 
 I forgot the advance of the evening, and how far I had strayed 
 from the house. Even the twilight had now subsided and was lost 
 in absolute darkness ; for though the sky might have afforded some 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 223 
 
 glimmering of light in the open spaces, I had now penetrated the 
 deepest covert of the preserves — 
 
 " Whose lofty trees 'yclad with summer's pride 
 Did spread so broad, that heaven's light did hide, 
 Not percible by power of any star." 
 
 In short, to quote another poet— 
 
 " Nox erat, et tern's animalia somnus habebat; ' " 
 
 for, though now far off, I faintly heard the turret clock at the house 
 strike eleven, and only then thought of the truant I had played 
 towards the family, who must have been astonished, if not of- 
 fended, at my absence, Nevertheless, I continued to u feed on 
 thoughts 1 ' which did not move " harmonious numbers," but waged 
 war with one another, till my whole heart became a seat of contest 
 and agitation little fitted for sober resolve. 
 
 The necessity, however, of finding my way back to the house 
 suspended my feelings for a moment, when I heard a considerable 
 rushing among the bushes, followed by a voice exclaiming, "Damn 
 them, they are here." 
 
 Somewhat alarmed, I called out — " Who are you?" to which I 
 just heard the reply, "We'll shew you fast enough-," and at that 
 instant I was levelled with the ground by the blow of a bludgeon. 
 My senses were not quite gone, for I heard the fearful words of 
 another voice, "Damn the rascal, sarve him out — finish him-," 
 and another blow descending on my head left me insensible. 
 
 How long I remained so I could not tell, when I found myself 
 reviving in the arms of two of Mr. Hastings' keepers, who, from 
 my long and mysterious absence, had been sent with lanthorns in 
 search of me. Finding I bled profusely, they shewed no small 
 signs of alarm, asking, as if to console me, whether I really felt 
 murdered, and obligingly adding, " it was lucky the gentleman had 
 got into the preserves, for this here blow was meant for one of us." 
 
 By this I found I was indebted for being laid prostrate to a gang 
 of poachers, and was congratulated on being left alive, though con- 
 siderably shattered. 
 
 While they endeavoured to raise me, we were all alarmed by 
 another loud halloo close at hand, and the keepers had recourse to 
 their staves-, but we were relieved by finding it proceeded from 
 Granville, who had also come in search of me, and seen the lights. 
 His surprise and concern at my condition may be imagined, to say 
 nothing of his alarm at seeing my head bound with bloody hand- 
 kerchiefs. 
 
 The keepers acquainted him with the cause, and I had strength 
 
 ' " 'Twas night, when every creature, void of cares, 
 The common gift of balmy slumber shares." 
 
 Dry-den's Virgil. 
 
224 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 to get upon my legs, though not to walk, and we were half a mile 
 from the house. In this emergency he detached one of the men to 
 the stables for a park chair, with an order not to disclose what had 
 happened 5 which was obeyed like most orders to keep news secret, 
 especially when it is of an alarming character. 
 
 In fact, when we arrived at the hall, which it took full half an 
 hour to do, we found the whole family in commotion and on the 
 watch, Mr. Hastings and Bertha at their head— the first in great 
 agitation — the last as pale as death. Spile of my suffering, which 
 was severe enough, I anxiously watched her demeanour, and hoped, 
 I own, for sweet words of sympathy and interest. She spoke not a 
 word, except in a sort of murmur, casting up her eyes to heaven, 
 and saying " It is a mercy he is alive ! " then clasping her hands 
 in a sort of fervour, as if in mental prayer. 
 
 This was no more* than what any other young woman might have 
 done, yet it pleased me. I was carried up stairs by the servants, 
 she following to the chamber door, when she looked at her watch 
 with some earnestness, saying to her father — " It will be full half 
 an hour before he can be here, even if at home 5 pray God he may 
 be so." 
 
 Mr. Hastings, who had shewn the kindest attention, explained 
 this " My good daughter," said he, 44 sent off an express for Sand- 
 ford 5 he will be here presently, and, I trust, will set you right. It 
 will be a warning to you." 
 
 He was going on, as he afterwards told me, to scold me for night 
 wandering, but seeing I looked while and faint, forbore. Meantime, 
 Bertha had reviewed all the cordials in the housekeeper's room, 
 and sent her maid with one to my bed-side. She never lost her col- 
 lectedness. 
 
 To shorten matters, Sandford came about midnight, and pro- 
 nounced that the brain was safe, though there might be a concus- 
 sion, in which case he said the profuse bleeding, which made things 
 so frightful in appearance, might, in reality, have been of service. 
 He even applied leeches to the swollen and livid temples, having 
 brought them on purpose, in consequence of learning, in a note 
 expressly from Bertha, the particulars of the wound, as she learned 
 them from the keeper. Every thing, however, was to depend upon 
 a quiet night, to watch which, Mrs. Margaret, Bertha's maid (with 
 whom, I believe I have said I had been a sort of a favourite during 
 my first visit), volunteered, with the full approbation of her mistress. 
 Sandford, at the request of that mistress and her father, agreed to 
 sleep at the house. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 225 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A DELIRIUM BETRAYS ME—STRANGE THAT A CHAMBERMAID CANNOT KEEP A SECRRT. 
 
 What I have done, 
 That might your nature, honour, and exception 
 Roughly awake, I here proclaim wag madness. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Hamlet. 
 
 I begin a new chapter to say that a blow on the head, well laid 
 on by a poacher, is no trifling matter, and that, though sense may 
 be restored, it may not continue. The agitation I had gone through 
 previous to that occasioned by this ruffian blow, and renewed by 
 the recent scene, put an end to the hope of that quiet on which my 
 cure was to depend. I slept, indeed, but it was a sleep of fever and 
 tumult 5 my dreams were horrible; they were of Bertha and her 
 brother, both of whom I thought lay murdered before me. I woke, 
 but the delusion continued. I was delirious ; I raved, and my rav- 
 ing was all of Bertha. 
 
 " 1 loved her," I cried ( so it was reported). u Forty thousand 
 brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my 
 sum. She is gone, but I shall marry her in heaven." 
 
 This was repeated more than once, and Mrs. Margaret, in con- 
 sternation, fled to Sandford for succour. He came ; my delirium 
 continued ; and I told him Lord Albany was an evil genius, who 
 had killed Bertha, but that Bertha was betrothed to me. 
 
 Alas ! poor mad brain ! to what had a poacher's arm reduced thee ! 
 
 The good Sandford used all his skill to recal my mind 5 and after 
 many more incoherencies of the same nature, all turning upon the 
 death of Foljambe and my marriage with Bertha, he succeeded. 
 
 One of his methods to restore reason was to encourage what I 
 was disposed to say, by appearing to converse with me. Among 
 other things, I happened to say, " She is the queen of flowers." 
 He asked, "Who?" I said, "Bertha." I then exclaimed, "Oh, 
 beautiful one, fit to be queen of the world !" He again asked, "Who?" 
 and I again answered, " Bertha!" " Do you love her, then?" said 
 he, on purpose to draw me into trying conclusions, which he held 
 was the best way to make reason return. My reply was, " Do I 
 love heaven? and do I not weep for her?" and the notion of weep- 
 ing produced the act, which, by the relief it gave to my hot brain, 
 was the first indication I gave of a step towards recovery. 
 
 I did not learn, however, what had passed till two days after- 
 wards, when I had fully recovered my reason, by sleep and the use 
 of opiates. All the next day I was kept in bed, the room darkened, 
 C 15 
 
226 
 
 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 and not a word allowed to be spoken } though Granville kindly re- 
 lieved Mrs. Margaret in watching by my bed-side } and several times 
 Mr. Hastings came in to inquire, which he seemed to do with in- 
 terest. 
 
 A greater comfort, however, was the next day, when Mrs. Mar- 
 garet assured me that her mistress was " in a peck of troubles" at 
 what had happened. My only reply to this was, that she was very 
 condescending ; to which Mrs. Margaret, who was as prone to talk 
 of her mistress as most other waiting gentlewomen, replied, 
 
 " Indeed she is, sir, the most condescendingest, sweetest lady 
 in England, and so you would say if you knew her as we do. Only 
 the wonderment is, that when she might have so many great lords 
 and barrownights, who all court her, she will never marry." 
 
 This excited my interest, and I wished her to go on, which she 
 was very willing to do, without being spurred. However, as a little 
 impetus, I just observed, 44 Probably there is no one good enough 
 for her?" 
 
 44 Oh dear no," replied Mrs. Margaret, 44 that can't be the reason j 
 that is, as far as quality and money are concerned : for there was my 
 lord (Albany, of course), and Sir Harry, and her cousin, young 
 Mr. Mansell, who has, that is to say, will have, a mint of money : 
 and they were all dying for her 5 but she refused 'em all, and I am 
 told (for she never talks to me about them things) that she will 
 never marry at all, being like married already to her papa, who 
 is as fond of her as she of him, and good reason for both. But Lord 
 bless you, sir, the doctor told me not to talk to you, and here I am, 
 as if it would make you belter instead of worse ; but the truth be, 
 that I could talk for ever about Miss Bertha, and you don't seem 
 to dislike it neither yourself, sir." 
 
 44 It does me good," said I. 
 
 44 And well it may," added the dame, 44 for she is just like a 
 kindly May morning, that does good to everybody and every thing. 
 To be sure, we all wondered how you could leave her in all her 
 grief the first evening she came home, and go without your supper 
 to them woods, and all to be knocked on the head by a nasty 
 poacher; but there is no accounting for tastes. However, I hope to 
 see you pure well again soon, and no more talking in your sleep." 
 
 44 Sleep ! did I talk in my sleep !" 
 
 44 Aye, that you did, to me and the doctor too, and all about Miss 
 Bertha." 
 
 44 Good heavens! I hope ! For God's sake what did I say?" 
 
 44 Oh, I hardly know, but a great deal of romancing 5 for you 
 talked of loving her more than forty thousand brothers, if she had 
 them 5 so of course you thought there were many more than poor 
 Mister Charles ; and besides that, you said you were married to 
 Miss Bertha in heaven, and would go and live with her there • and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 227 
 
 that she was a rose, and a queen, and I don't know what besides. 
 But the doctor, he knows all about it, and said you were wander- 
 ing, and did not know what you said ; and for my part, I thought so 
 too, and so did Miss Bertha herself, when I told her of it. But, good 
 God, sir, I am afraid you are going off again, for you just look as 
 white as a sheet, and as frightful as when you were first knocked 
 down. Dear me, what shall I get you ?" 
 
 Something indeed seemed necessary $ for the thought of all I had 
 said in my delirium being known, not only to Margaret, but to 
 Bertha herself, filled me with agony • I felt my wound severely, and 
 was very sick. 
 
 Luckily Sandford was just arrived from York, and came in at the 
 moment. He saw my distress, and asked Margaret the cause of it, 
 who declared she did not know, for she had only been having the 
 most innocentest conversation possible, just to amuse me, as I 
 seemed rather low. When, however, having sent Margaret out of 
 the room, he heard the particulars, he was not surprised, but told 
 me not to alarm myself, for that Miss Hastings was much too sen- 
 sible a creature, as well as too just, to take any thing amiss from a 
 man not himself. 
 
 "■ To be sure," said he, " if she did, you are in a bad way, for 
 you have a great deal more to answer for than what Margaret told 
 you. " 
 
 He then informed me of all I had said to himself about Bertha ; 
 " And, by the way/' said he, " it is well, perhaps, that Mr. Has- 
 tings is not Dionysius, who, you know, put a man to death for dream- 
 ingHhat he had killed him, because it denoted a foregone conclu- 
 sion. Here, however, if your heart is as safe as your head, as I hope 
 it is, you have nothing to fear." 
 
 Though he said this playfully, and to recover me from the mental 
 excitement occasioned by Margaret's garrulity, I felt seriously 
 alarmed at the thought that Bertha had been made conscious of her 
 power over me, even in delirium. Sandford saw it, and bent all his 
 efforts to do away the effect, but rather too emphatically, as I 
 thought, dwelling upon the impossibility of Bertha's taking it ill, 
 and her conviction of the total impossibility of my thinking of the 
 thing itself. He succeeded, however, in calming me, and left me, 
 saying, I was going on well. 
 
 Thus, said I to myself, everybody concurs in holding, that to 
 think, feel, and act as I do, is madness ; and the best I can expect 
 is, that Bertha, from forming the same judgment, will acquit me of 
 presumption, and still allow me to be her friend; which will be fe- 
 licity enough. The thought soothed. 
 
228 
 
 DE CLIFFORD $ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 1 BID FAREWELL TO ALL HOPES OF BERTHA, AND LEAVE FOLJAMBE PARK FOR EVER. 
 
 The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, 
 I do give lost. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Winter's Tale, 
 Although 
 
 The air of paradise did fan the house, 
 And angels offic'd all, I will be gone, 
 That pitiful rumour may report my flight, 
 To consolate thine ear. 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well. 
 
 It was two days more before I was able, or rather willing, lo 
 quit my room ; for though my wound was healing fast, my strength 
 recruited, and I had no more delirium, my vanity, or (as vanity 
 has been characterised ) my desire to make myself agreeable, could 
 not bear the thought of appearing before Bertha with my head 
 bound up, to hide the patches still necessary for my cure. 
 
 Both Mr. Hastings and Bertha congratulated me cordially enough 
 on my reappearance among them 5 yet, as my fears whispered me, 
 they were not quite so cordial as they had been. There was a con- 
 straint, a thoughtfulness, in the demeanour of both, which I did 
 not like. Was this owing to the tales told by the delirium ? I was 
 afraid to answer. 
 
 The same constraint seemed to pursue them the rest of the day, 
 which, as Mr. Hastings was naturally reserved, did not in him sur- 
 prise me; and for Bertha herself, though of so very frank a nature, 
 much allowance was to be made, from the mournful circumstances 
 that surrounded her. Still one would have thought that, as I had 
 been invited with the express view of contributing comfort to the 
 family under those circumstances, I might have been admitted to a 
 fuller companionship than was now awarded me. The saloon where 
 we had generally sat was avoided, and Bertha, if not closeted with 
 her father, passed the whole morning, and even the evening, in her 
 own room; so that, except at meal, there seemed an absolute in- 
 terdiction of intercourse. 
 
 This continued all the next day, when a still more marked inci- 
 dent proved the change I had noticed. Observing my young friend 
 cloaked at the hall-door, preparing for a walk, and offering to at- 
 tend her, she protested so strongly against my wish, on the score 
 of my weakened state, although I felt quite myself, that I saw this 
 could only proceed from design, and I instantly desisted. That day 
 I saw her no more, except at dinner and tea, when the conversation, 
 contrary to its wont, was altogether uninteresting. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 229 
 
 Alarmed and mortified, I had recourse to my usual counsellor, 
 Granville, who told me news which prompted serious reflection. It 
 seems that my unfortunate wanderings were known to Mr. Hastings 
 as well as to Bertha. O ! these chambermaids ! Mrs. Margaret could 
 not retain such a remarkable secret, but told it to Mr. Marvel, Mr. 
 Hastings' butler, and he to Mr. Hastings himself, thinking it a mere 
 amusing anecdote of a gentleman out of his mind. The minutise, 
 indeed, were not staled, but merely how the young gentleman had 
 run on about Miss Bertha ; and when Mr. Hastings, with some dis- 
 pleasure, checked his servant, whom, not liking the subject, he 
 accused of an exaggerated account, Mr. Marvel, in defence of his 
 own and Mrs. Margaret's integrity, said it all passed before the doc- 
 tor, who knew all the particulars. 
 
 Greatly annoyed, Mr. Hastings immediately assailed Sandford for 
 the facts, who very frankly gave them, treating the whole affair as 
 of no consequence, and as a common occurrence in deliriums, for 
 which a patient was no more answerable than for a dream. 
 
 Mr. Hastings hoped it might be so, but the particular phrases, as 
 well as ideas, struck him. In relating this afterwards to Granville, 
 he did not conceal the fears which the incident had prompted, pi™ 
 tying and speaking well of me, but no more. 
 
 " By this," said Granville, " it should seem that his humility is 
 on the wane, and his pride resuming the ascendant." 
 
 My suspicions, as to a change of manner both in father and 
 daughter, where thus confirmed, and I was not the happier for it. 
 My pride, however, saved me. I was resolved that, even if the sup- 
 posed discovery should amount to proof in their minds of a pre- 
 sumptuous attachment, not to be entertained, they should be under 
 no necessity to take precautions against it — in fact, that I would 
 myself relieve them from their fears, and retire from their presence, 
 never to return. 
 
 In this resolution I was confirmed by Granville, and only waited 
 for a proper opportunity to take my leave in form. Bui to think 
 that Bertha could slight me ( she who had been so kind ) was difficult. 
 
 Thanks, however, to that self-respect — in other words, pride— 
 of which probably, by this, I have shewn I had a sufficient share, 
 together with the few drops of Clifford and Bardolfe blood which 
 still ran in my veins, my grief did not get the better of my courage. 
 I was at least resolved not to be pitied, as Granville said I was, by 
 Mr. Hastings 5 and if his daughter knew I loved her, I determined 
 to shew that I could also leave her. I almost wished that she would 
 use me ill, and, vile and ungrateful as I was, I began to accuse her 
 of caprice, perhaps of coquetting 5 such " confirmation strong" does 
 the least change of manners towards a lover become, if once his 
 jealousy is roused. Yet the pure and honourable Bertha knew no- 
 thing of caprice far from wounding a fellow-creature, she never 
 
no 
 
 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 harmed a fly, nor ever wished ill to Ihe meanest wretch alive. I 
 mention it, therefore, to shew the admirable justice, fairness, and 
 reasonableness of a man in love. 
 
 My then temper, however, by no means stopt here, and while in 
 the act of taking my wise resolutions, I happened to turn over 
 Shakspeare, and fortuitously lighted upon the scene in Hamlet, 
 where Ophelia seeks to return the gifts with which the prince had 
 presented her. At that moment the little Gresset given me by Bertha 
 two or three years before, and which I never was without, was lying 
 by my side. 
 
 The feelings and language of Ophelia seemed opposite to my own 
 case, and I read the passages more than once, as almost ominous— 
 certainly I could not read them without emotion. 
 
 " My lord, I have remembrances of yours, 
 That I have long'd to redeliver. 
 I pray you now receive them." 
 
 " No ! not I. 
 I never gave you aught." 
 
 " Indeed, my lord, you know right well you did ; 
 And with them words, of so sweet breath composed, 
 As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, 
 Take them again ; for, to the noble mind, 
 Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind." 
 
 Like Ophelia, I felt that Bertha's rich gift had now waxed poor 5 
 from what I supposed unkindness in the giver, and I resolved to 
 return it. With Gresset, therefore, in my pocket, I determined to 
 seek out Miss Hastings, in order to restore her book, and then to 
 lake my leave for ever of the persons whose consequence to me, 
 even in the act of renouncing them, equalled the value of the world* 
 
 With this view, I anxiously watched the motions of Bertha. 
 Could I but see her alone one little, little minute, I thought I should 
 be salisfied. 
 
 My wishes were so far crowned, that a very few minutes after- 
 wards I saw her from my windows, going towards her favourite 
 summer-house. I immediately followed, and presented myself at 
 the door. She seemed disconcerted at my approach, and was evi- 
 dently embarrassed. A consciousness, as I thought, of something 
 unusual gleamed over her features. Certainly^ though there was 
 still an expression of kindness, and even interest about my health, 
 the enchanting frankness of manner, which had always so won me, 
 was gone. 
 
 She of course inquired after my wound, and looking, as I con- 
 strued it, as if she wished I would retire, asked, if it were quite pru- 
 dent to leave the house so soon ? I replied, it was so little otherwise, 
 that I contemplated returning to Oxford the next day. 
 
 " So soon," cried she, with surprise, but with nothing like oppo- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 23i 
 
 sitlon. " Can we hope, Mr. De Clifford, that you will be well enough 
 to travel so far, after such a serious and shocking accident ? " 
 
 "My accident," said I, mofrnfully, "is the least evil I have to 
 bear. It is already unfelt, and will soon be forgotten. Would to 
 God I could say the same of its unhappy consequences." 
 
 A blush immediately suffused the cheek of Bertha, which shewed 
 she must have suspected what I meant. Yet, she hesitatingly asked, 
 " What can Mr. De Clifford mean ? " 
 
 " More, perhaps," replied I, " than I am well able to explain ; 
 and yet the heavenly goodness and condescension I have ever found 
 in Miss Hastings may possibly forgive an offence, apparently most 
 presumptuous, but, in reality, most unwittingly, nay, altogether 
 unconsciously, committed." 
 
 "Offence! presumption!" exclaimed she ; "surely those are 
 terms that can never be applied to the conduct of Mr. De Clifford 
 towards any one, much less to friends who respect him as we do." 
 
 "Alas! " said I, "though while in possession of reason, it 
 requires no forecast, nay, it would demand a miracle, to transgress 
 a respect which fills every thought of my brain, and every beat of 
 my heart, yet when reason has strayed, who can answer for the 
 abandoned citadel? Believe me, lady, that the wound to the outward 
 man, inflicted by the ruffian who felled me, was absolutely nothing 
 to the internal horror, the alarm and misery I have felt, ever since 
 I have learned how guiltily my imagination wandered." 
 
 The conscious and ingenuous girl here shewed all her conscious- 
 ness of what I meant, by a blush of rosy red, yet accompanied with 
 an abashed, uneasy air, as if the allusion was irksome to her. 
 
 The thought hurt me, and I proceeded rather more boldly. 
 
 " It is hence that I have sought this interview, which I grieve to 
 think discomposes you ; as, indeed, of what consequence can any 
 feeling of mine be to Miss Hastings ? Be assured, however, that my 
 only object is exculpation, which is due to the meanest, if they 
 have suffered injustice ; and I claim to say, that should Miss Has- 
 tings or her father for one moment suppose that such presumptuous, 
 such audacious aspirations, as I am told escaped me in my frenzy, 
 were the genuine effusions of a mind awake, they will do me an 
 injustice which they themselves might be sorry for." 
 
 During this address Bertha stood with her head declined, and 
 her eyes bent upon the ground. She seemed, however, all ear, her 
 colour heightened, and she breathed quick. But whatever of in- 
 terest this shewed, her reply proved that it was of no flattering sort, 
 couched, as it was, in terms more formal than I had ever heard from 
 her, except in the very first days of our acquaintance. Yet her own 
 justice and candour appeared in every word of it. 
 
 " I will not, Sir" said she, " affect to be ignorant of what you 
 allude to. Both my father and myself were almost immediately ap- 
 
232 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 prized of it ; but I trust, under the lamentable circumstances you 
 were in, you cannot impute to us the injustice of supposing that 
 either your reason knew, or your will approved of, what you must 
 be aware, were it otherwise, would fill us all with uneasiness, and 
 you with regret. No 5 without canvassing the language you are 
 pleased to use concerning yourself, of presumption and audacity, 
 pray think belter of us than to suppose we could accuse you of 
 doing, or even thinking, when possessed of your reason, any thing 
 which that reason would, I am sure, forbid you to imagine. 1 ' 
 
 Though this was said with her eyes still averted (for though I 
 gazed upon her countenance, yet I could not catch them ), it was 
 said firmly and without hesitation, and seemed so complete an 
 extinction of every hope of her favour (if ever I had encou- 
 raged one), that it quite decided me in my resolution to return 
 instantly to Oxford, and, if possible, to renounce memory till I 
 became a new man. I own I felt rather in bitterness, yet far from 
 blaming her. But though the petulance I had so unworthily felt 
 was gone, I was not the less mournful when, as I thought it right, 
 I attempted to take my leave. The Gresset, too, which my hand 
 clasped in my pocket, I prepared to surrender; not from resent- 
 ment, nor even as poor Ophelia had felt, that the giver had proved 
 unkind — for with unkindness I was just enough to think that Bertha 
 had nothing to do — but purely because to retain it would be danger- 
 ous to myself, and I could neither keep nor bestow it elsewhere. 
 I therefore, though, I fear, not without faltering, submissively, 
 yet distantly, thanked her for doing me justice. 
 
 " Nevertheless," said I, " though you are kind enough to allay 
 any fear I might have had that one so unworthy could have raised, 
 as it were, his thoughts to heaven -V 
 
 " 0! Mr. De Clifford," interrupted Bertha, " why this? Indeed 
 you must not breathe a word in this style. I have no pretensions to 
 be so addressed, and surely I have given you no room to think I 
 expect it." 
 
 "Enough, madam," said I \ " I stand corrected 5 and if it offend 
 you to tell you how much more than any thing that ever befel me 
 I have valued the kindness you and your family have shewn me 5 
 how much it has depressed me to see the necessity of taking leave 
 of you for ever, if only to spare you all Suture apprehension of what 
 you have, I fear, deemed impertinent ; believe that I am suffi- 
 ciently punished for it by the change of look and tone which at this 
 moment I observe, and with which, for these last few hours, I 
 cannot but feel I have been regarded. But this makes no difference 
 in the grateful and devoted feelings of honour and esteem with 
 which I have ever viewed both you and yours. I leave you, 31adam, 
 and will not tax Mr. Hastings' friendship to renew the honour he 
 has done me, by inviting me again • happy if I can by this put an 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 233 
 
 end to any fears of his or yours, if you have entertained them, 
 which the levity and inconsiderateness of servants may have occa- 
 sioned." 
 
 During this speech, Bertha seemed so astounded, that when I 
 here paused, she could not reply. Her colour came and went, and 
 she hardly yet raised her eyes so as to see that I had taken my book 
 from my pocket to present to her. When she saw it in my hand, a 
 look of surprise, curiosity, and doubt as to my intention, flitted 
 across her countenance, and she evidently waited with interest to 
 be told what I meant by producing the well-known book. 
 
 I left her not in uncertainty, but, presenting it, observed, 44 Per- 
 haps no miser's treasure was ever so dear to him as this book has 
 been to me. It has ever been my pride, my pleasure, my compa- 
 nion, and my friend. In no change of scene, in no one hour of the 
 day, and hardly of the night, have I ever been without it. It has 
 solaced and exhilarated many a melancholy moment, when far 
 away, hopeless of seeing you again, and weighed down with a 
 sense of my own comparative humbleness, I have thought of the 
 beautiful giver of it, and of the condescending frankness with 
 which it was given. That delight has, I fear, now left me to return 
 no more. I seem to have offended the giver, or at least she seems 
 estranged from me. Perhaps for me it is as well. It may be better, 
 indeed, that I should look no more upon it $ but while in my pos- 
 session, to lay it aside would I know be impossible 5 therefore it is 
 best to restore it to its original owner." 
 
 Miss Hastings was here much overcome 5 she breathed thick and 
 fast, and looked greatly moved 5 yet her collectedness did not desert 
 her. She was surprised, perhaps grieved, but her dignity remained \ 
 and though affected as I have described, there seemed no re-action 
 of feeling (if I may so call it) towards me. She received the book 
 from my hand with something like tremor, and I observed a tear 
 fall upon it as she laid it on the table. But quickly recovering — 
 
 44 Is it possible," said she, 44 that I can have been so misconstrued 
 in any thing I have said or done, as to be thought, as I evidently 
 am, unjust and capricious? I beseech you, Mr. De Clifford, not to 
 believe me so light, as either to give or withdraw my esteem lightly. 
 I well recollect the pleasure 1 had in being allowed to present you, 
 as the friend of him who is lost to us, with this poor book. I never 
 thought, or wished, to have it returned 5 and if it has been so valu- 
 able to you, I am sure that is not a reason why the wish should 
 now occur. But if the delight you say you received from it has 
 passed away, it is not for me to refute your opinions, or refuse to 
 receive it back." 
 
 Here she looked earnestly at the book as it lay on the table, and 
 a tear^again evidently trembled in her eye. Resuming, she went on : 
 44 You talk, Mr. De Clifford, of leaving us to-morrow. My father 
 
234 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 cannot oppose it, if you think your duty elsewhere, or what has hap- 
 pened here, requires it 5 of which you alone are the judge. All I 
 can say — and I do so most sincerely' — is to hope that you may not 
 travel before your strength is equal to it. If really, however, you 
 feel strong enough, we cannot oppose your wish. But never can we 
 forget our obligations to you, in coming so promptly and so kindly 
 to support my sinking brother, and afterwards ourselves-, — though 
 that was too soon rendered powerless by the lamentable accident 
 under which you have so much suffered. That it should have hap- 
 pened to you while my father's guest, enhances our concern ; and 
 
 coming, too, so close after the most unhappy of all calamities * 
 
 Here her feelings got the better of her ; and whatever formality 
 had before appeared, from whatever cause, she forgot it all in this 
 allusion, thus surprised from her, as to her brother's fate. A sort 
 of convulsive sigh prevented her from going on, till at length 
 she added : 
 
 ' 4 No : no one felt for us under this mournful event more than 
 you, Mr. De Clifford ; and yet your interest about us has produced 
 calamity to yourself; wounds to your person, and unhappiness, it 
 should seem, to your mind. Whatever you have fancied as to 
 changes, which circumstances, I think, might account for, do you 
 think we can see this with indifference, or let you part from us, as 
 you say you think it right to do, for ever, with coldness? No; as 
 we never can forget whose friend you originally were in the family, 
 or the sympathy you have shewn us on his loss, so we shall ever 
 be interested in your prosperity, and ever happy to hear of it. 
 More I cannot say." 
 
 At this she again took up the volume I had restored to her, looked 
 at it with emotion, and turned from me, evidently to hide and 
 recover from the effect of her feelings. 
 
 I was deeply affected; nevertheless, there were parts of this 
 speech in which caution seemed so studiously united with kindness, 
 that I was left without a hope to rest upon, that I ever had been or 
 could be any thing to her, though she was still every thing to me. 
 The little proofs of tenderness she shewed on taking back the book, 
 proceeded evidently from her goodness, and the surprise occasioned 
 by the sight and return of her present,— which, pleased as I was 
 to observe her emotion, I did not fail to remark she accepted with- 
 out remonstrance or opposition. Her reasoning, too, on the ex- 
 pression of my feelings, was cool and without any disturbance. She 
 was sorry that in my weak state I should leave them, but took no 
 pains, or, at least, was not desirous, to delay my departure. In 
 fact, she took me at my word. Upon the whole, it was evident that 
 I was nothing to her, and I felt accordingly. 
 
 I endeavoured to speak, but my heart was loo full. Yet, after the 
 interest she had expressed, I could not leave her coldly ; and I had 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 235 
 
 no other opportunity to bid her farewell as I wished. I was already 
 on the threshold, and had begun to retreat in silence, but turned 
 and perceived she had thrown herself into a chair, and was leaning 
 her cheek on her hand, as if reflecting on every thing that had 
 passed, certainly not as if it had been indifferent, but with most 
 entire acquiescence, and with no expectancy that the conversation 
 should be renewed. 
 
 Though much moved, I had no wish to interrupt this state. I 
 saw that with whatever friendly feeling Bertha might have regarded 
 me, she could part, at least, with all the demonstration of it the 
 moment a suspicion arose that I loved her; and that suspicion, 
 spite of the excuses made for delirium, had now got possession of 
 her mind. Hence her cool decision of purpose, though at the expense 
 of no inconsiderable degree of that exquisite feeling which, though 
 always united with firmness, was her characteristic. 
 
 Thoroughly impressed with these truths, I governed myself 
 accordingly in the farewell I still wished to take of her. 
 
 " I cannot leave you, Miss Hastings,' 1 said I, " after all the con- 
 descending things you have just uttered, without at least thanking 
 you for them. Very sweet will their recollection be, whatever may 
 become of me. In struggle, in misfortune, in poverty, in obscu- 
 rity, or in a prosperous career, should Heaven so will it, the remem- 
 brance of your virtues, of your sweetness — and may I not add, the 
 hope of your goodwill — will cheer me on rny road through the 
 world, though I may never see you again. Ought I ever indeed to 
 wish to do so, even could I suppose myself welcome, or return to a 
 spot, where I am a supposed object of pity? No » the golden days 
 of my life are over, never to return • nor would Miss Hastings her- 
 self wish me to regret leaving a place which, though I once thought 
 it heaven, is heaven no longer. Alas ! it is too clear that Foljambe 
 Park is now no place for a comparative outcast." 
 
 Bertha started at these words, and shewed evident distress in her 
 countenance, waving her hand as if she wished me to desist from 
 such a strain, so I only added, " It is, however, to you, a place of 
 happiness. May you ever be, as you are, its ornament and its pride, 
 the solace and support of your excellent parent, and the dispenser 
 of blessings to all around you ! " 
 
 I could go no farther $ my unfeigned and unbounded respect, as 
 well as love for her, quite unmanned me, in thus hopelessly leaving 
 her 5 and I am ashamed to say, that while emulating the firmness of 
 a philosopher, I shewed the weakness of a woman. 
 
 Bertha perceived it, though having covered her face with her 
 hand, I had no power to observe what her own feelings were, except 
 that a deep and hysterical sob, which fell on my ear as I left the 
 summer-house, shewed that, though I was willingly allowed to 
 depart, it was not without sympathy. 
 
236 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 1 RETURN TO OXFORD. — ITS ALTERED ASPECT. 
 
 He's full of altera lion and self-reproving. 
 
 Shakspeare.— King Lear. 
 
 I have so little pleasure in commemorating the remaining hours 
 which I spent at Foljambe Park previous to returning to Oxford, 
 that I hastily pass them over. It is almost sufficient to say, that after 
 my mournful parting with Bertha, I saw her no more. 
 
 When two persons lay themselves out to avoid one another, the 
 chances are strong that they do not meet. Hence, Bertha remaining 
 all the rest of the day in her chamber, and I either in the lower 
 rooms or out of doors, we pretty well provided against encountering 
 again till dinner. For my own part, I marked this as another proof 
 of her newly-assumed distant behaviour ; and this was only confirmed 
 when we assembled for dinner— 1 mean Granville and I, with Mr. 
 Darling, the clergyman of the parish 5 for Mr. Hastings coming in, 
 with an anxious countenance, and somewhat solemn step, observed, 
 he was sorry we must dine without his daughter, for she was far 
 from well. 
 
 This cast a gloom upon us all though I own, at first, I was by no 
 means certain whether the illness was not assumed, in order to avoid 
 the exhibition of a consciousness which might be unpleasant. But 
 Bertha was no dissembler, and when Mrs. Margaret, in answer to 
 inquiries as to what she would like sent her, brought down word 
 that she declined eating any thing, and would only take some tea, I 
 began not only to believe, but to be alarmed; nor was my anxiety 
 diminished, when, after dinner, Mr. Hastings leaving the bottle, 
 which was seldom his custom, for Granville to administer, passed 
 up stairs and did not return. 
 
 A sort of gloomy abstraction ensued ; Granville was serious, I 
 uneasy and involved in considerations of the future, and Mr. Darling, 
 after being reduced to bestow himself upon the wine and fruit, 
 thinking he was in the way, called for his horse, and jogged quietly 
 home. 
 
 The evening passed off heavily, and I was any thing but cheerful. 
 Indeed, the house was itself a house of mourning, and little able 
 to bear any new uneasiness the night, therefore, was not happy. 
 
 The next morning, however, which I had fixed for my departure, 
 gave better tidings of Bertha, though she still kept her chamber, — 
 whether from design or inability to leave it, I could not tell and I 
 took leave of Mr. Hastings alone. He had graciously ordered his 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 237 
 
 chariot and four to take me to York -, I stepl into it with tolerable 
 alacrity • and when it drove from the door, I seemed to turn my 
 back upon all that was worth living for in the world. 
 
 Sad and serious were my reflections during my too-long journey ; 
 for not foreseeing how necessary it was to get as quickly over the 
 ground as possible, I had embarrassed myself with a horse at York, 
 most mistakenly preferring solitary meditation in a slow journey 
 back to Oxford, to the rapid mail-coach just then established, with 
 the company of inquisitive strangers. Nevertheless, I behaved man- 
 fully, and did not scruple to look my position full in the face. What 
 gave me most hope of myself was, that, however hurt and wounded 
 in pride, I could not blame Bertha. I thought she had behaved with 
 perfect propriety, and doing her this justice gave me consolation. 
 
 As I approached Oxford, however, and contemplated the new life 
 I was evidently to lead there, never before or since did that in- 
 teresting place appear so dismal. I perceived that my mind was 
 jaundiced. Beautiful as Oxford still was, the associations which give 
 to its beauty its principal charm were now wanting. I no longer 
 thought of it as the abode of science, of genius, of an inexhaustible 
 mine of learning, the haunt of cultivated spirits, holding their arms 
 open to myself to become one of them ; but as a mere place of exile 
 for a given time, though from what country I knew not, because to 
 what country I myself belonged I could not tell. Even Maudlin 
 Tower, once as I thought an emblem of tranquillity, no longer had 
 charms for me. I passed it without being conscious of its existence, 
 far less of its beauty. 
 
 What made me almost angry was, the happy air of content, in- 
 spired by peace and leisure, which the town and colleges seemed to 
 wear, although it was night. All the buildings appeared illuminated, 
 yet there was no noise or bustle $ for the lights proceeded— or seem- 
 ed with a little imagination to do so — from the quiet lamps of study. 
 Their inmates, thought I, have very different mistresses from mine; 
 the Muses seldom refuse the worship of those who court them. I 
 have played them truant, but perhaps they will receive me again. 
 
 Such meditation had employed me from the time I reached what 
 Pope calls " the gloomy verdure of Stonour 5" fori recollected his 
 picturesque journey to Oxford, which, like myself, he approached, 
 u overtaken by the solemn light of the moon, without company, or 
 any interruption (o the range of his own thoughts. 11 I experienced, 
 also., the same surprise that he did, when, aboui half a mile from 
 the city, all the bells toiled in different notes, the clocks of every 
 college answering one another, and sounding (some in a deeper, 
 some in a softer tone) that it was eleven at night. 
 
 Having put up my horse, I proceeded with a heavy heart to 
 Queen's, and gave but a sullen knock at the ponderous gate. The 
 porler seemed in a stale of happy drowsiness, which I almost, or 
 
238 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 quite, envied. He had no care but to open and shut. He knew no- 
 thing of refinement, and least of all of a refined and misplaced pas- 
 sion. He was low and alone in the world, and content to be so. He 
 seemed, however, glad, as well as surprised, to see me, and told 
 me " Muster Fothergill would be main glad loo." 
 
 What fears did not this name inspire ! I expected to be severely 
 catechised, and almost wished for a tutor who was content with 
 Greek lectures, without troubling himself with those on the heart. 
 However, I had leisure enough to think all these things over during 
 the night. My friend, the porter, had furnished me with a lanthorn, 
 and I let myself into my room 5 but bed never looked so little invit- 
 ing, and in the recess of an armed-chair I lost myself in no very 
 comfortable slate for several hours. He must, however, be a wretch 
 indeed, who frightens away his soft nurse during a whole night. 
 Accordingly, when I waked in the morning, I found myself in my 
 bed, after something like refreshment and wiser thoughts had taken 
 possession of me. The pang at leaving Foljambe Park had done its 
 worst. I had formed stern resolutions, not the less deeply fixed be- 
 cause I had given way to natural feeling in the first moments of 
 parting < and I began to have less fear of the meeting with Folhergill. 
 
 As I had acquainted him with my accident, he very kindly waived 
 the ceremony of my waiting upon him, and, on learning my arrival, 
 came to see me in my rooms ; then, having ascertained that there 
 was scarcely any inconvenience remaining from my wounds, he 
 proceeded at once to the subject which he supposed was uppermost 
 with me. I concealed nothing ; but told him all I had observed that 
 had raised my ideas of Bertha's character; but, at the same time, all 
 that had fixed my conviction from herself, that to continue to love 
 her would be vain. 
 
 " How do you feel towards her ? " asked he. " Are you angry ? " 
 
 "No. 1 ' 
 
 "Is she in danger of losing the character she has gained with 
 you?" 
 "No." 
 
 "Do you yet hale her? " 
 
 "Oh, no. Though she has been more distant to me than I thought 
 she could be, I shall ever look upon her as unequalled among wo- 
 men, in every charm and every virtue." 
 
 " I have hopes of you," said Fothergill, " but I shall watch you. 
 I will have no lone walks, much less at midnight; though I think 
 the lesson you received upon that sort of romance will save a repe- 
 tition of it for some time to come." 
 
 We then conferred on our plan of operations as to academical 
 pursuits, and he opened to me a view he had kindly fostered for 
 my benefit : this was, to stand at the next election for a Demy at 
 Maudlin. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 239 
 
 " If you are once cured of your love of any females but the Mu- 
 ses," said he, " * he disposition you have shewn for literature, and 
 a little interest, may, I think, insure your success, and you may 
 then literally pursue the early footsteps of your favourite Addison." 
 
 The thought gave me a pleasure that I could not — indeed did not 
 try to conceal. It lighted up my countenance, and, in fact, was the 
 first sensible excitement to ambition which I had hitherto felt. 
 
 " You do not seem averse to my scheme," said Folhergill, " and 
 I hail it for more causes than one. Addison, you know, was not 
 only distinguished as the most polite of our scholars, but became 
 secretary of slate. With such an example before you, how soon will 
 not the love of a boy sink before the ambition of a man?" 
 " Is then ambition incompatible with love ?" 
 " It should seem that at least it should be made of sterner stuff. 
 Recollect de La Rochefoucauld : — 'On passe souvent de l'amour a 
 l'ambition , mais on ne revient guere d-e l'ambition a l'amour :' and 
 if, as ambition did with Addison, it lead you into politics and party, 
 instead of sinking you into a country parson (which is only another 
 word for a lover), you will soon be independent of the whole house 
 of Hastings." 
 
 " I should not wish to forget them," said I. 
 u I should not like you if you did," replied he ; " but if you suc- 
 ceed in the career I have proposed — if, as is in your power, you 
 become eminent as a scholar, and through scholarship, an eminent 
 public man — you may force the family to respect you, as if you 
 were their equal \ and Bertha herself, though she may not return 
 your love, may feel a pride and a pleasure in the thought that you 
 have been her lover." 
 
 How well did this observing man understand the springs of hu- 
 man action. He knew that he was taking me by my weak side. He 
 saw that the bait had succeeded. I shewed it in the smile that played 
 round my lips. For the first time, I began to think that the church 
 was not the only career open to a decayed gentleman, and that there 
 were other parties than those of Athens and Rome. In short, the 
 precedent of Addison, who had thrown off at Queen's, proceeded to 
 Maudlin, and thence into the first ranks of society, had all the 
 weight with me which my tutor intended. 
 
 I told him I was impatient to begin. He smiled at my haste, but 
 thought it augured well. " Enthusiasm in love," he observed, a too 
 often makes a man a fool : in ambition, no one can be a hero with- 
 out it." 
 
 To be sure, the superstructure which Folhergill was thus endea- 
 vouring to raise seemed to have but slight foundations ; neverthe- 
 less, he was not without his reasons, which may hereafter be de- 
 veloped. 
 
 This conversation put me in spirits. I braced myself up to exer- 
 
240 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 tion; I strove for college honours, and succeeded; and, on the 
 strength of it, was introduced to the influential people at Maudlin 
 where Fothergill's universal reputation did much for me. I n short' 
 within a twelvemonth after the eventful visit to Foljambe Park, my 
 first ambition was crowned, and the " decayed gentleman," with a 
 fair proportion of eclat, became a Demy of Maudlin. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF INDOLENCE — HISTORY OF SIR SIMEON SAUNTER. 
 
 Ten thousand harms more than the ills I know, 
 My idleness doth hatch. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 It must be owned that I have passed quickly over the ground in 
 Ihis part of my history 5 but as the life of a student is little interest- 
 ing to any one but himself, I have nothing to do, in this part of it, 
 but to report progress, and ask leave to sit again. Nevertheless, 
 there was one interval, of sadness indeed, but which at least occa- 
 sioned a variety ; so I am bound to record it. 
 
 The conquest over my affections was not accomplished either 
 soon, or without considerable interruptions in my efforts to succeed. 
 At one time, it not only cost me a severe illness, which fell in the 
 shape of a fever on my spirits, but went far towards a seemingly 
 total change in my character. For whether the perpetual effort and 
 struggle which I had to endure relaxed my energies, so that they 
 could not recover their elasticity, or that my loss of hope in love 
 made me despair of every other hope, there were times when no 
 object seemed worth pursuing, and the vision with which Fother- 
 gill had dazzled me was sometimes obscured in 
 
 " Cloud instead, and ever-during dark." 
 
 At one time, after a long, most laborious, and exhausting fit of 
 study, which perhaps caused much consequent weakness, I fell as 
 it were into helplessness, and not only became dead to all power of 
 exertion, but an actual sloth, both in body and mind. I shirked all 
 the discipline of the college, on the score of illness; if I opened a 
 book, I could not proceed with it-, I postponed all business; magle 
 promises, only to break them; procrastinated in every thing, suc- 
 ceeded in nothing. In short, for near two months, exertion seemed 
 to kill me 5 I was even ingenious in excuses to avoid it 5 and though 
 Fothergiil became bitter in his reproaches, and even threatened to 
 abandon me, my indolence seemed insuperable. He however, took 
 a way peculiar to himself to cure me of it. 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 Ml 
 
 While real disease seemed to consume me, he made no effort to 
 reason on these its dangerous effects, but called in the aid of medi- 
 cine and kindness to restore me. But when this had in a great mea- 
 sure succeeded, and he observed me a willing prey to mental bit- 
 terness, rather than bodily- weakness, he changed his battery, and 
 as soon as he found I was capable of being reasoned with, did not 
 fail to set before me the disgrace and misery I was preparing for 
 myself in all time to come. 
 
 At first I only felt annoyed, and allowed: him to preach ; but by 
 degrees I began to argue with him, which he sagaciously hailed as 
 an omen of improvement in my condition. He was, as the reader 
 knows, keenly observant of manners and intellectual habits; a man 
 of maxims and illustrations, and always ready with examples, drawn 
 from real life, in support of his theories. Of these I have already 
 given not a few instances, extracted from what (as I have related) he 
 called his book of human nature 5 and I, perhaps, have been thus 
 particular, in order that I may record another not unamusing pic- 
 ture, which he had long before drawn, of the mischiefs of indolence. 
 
 This, by way of practical support to his argument, finding I 
 could bear it, he desired to set before me. The impression it made 
 was deep and beneficial, and in fact went further to restore me than 
 a whole volume of sermons. 
 
 It was after having given some indication of a power and dispo- 
 sition to enter into his reasoning upon the mischiefs which my new 
 character, as he called it, was brewing for myself, that Fothergill 
 produced the sketch he had some years before made, of an old 
 friend, then no more, by name Sir Simeon Saunter. They had been 
 under graduates together at Queen's, and the picture which he had 
 drawn of him was dramatic. 
 
 Their friendship began by a convenient prompt, which Fother- 
 gill gave Sir Simeon at lecture. Not that his scholarship was mean ; 
 though how he came lobe a scholar at all, who scarcely ever would 
 open a book till forced, moved everybody's wonder. If he read, it 
 was in bed in a morning, from which no college punishment could 
 ever move him, till eleven or twelve o'clock ; so that he generally 
 passed his time as a prisoner, under an arrear of impositions. No 
 man deserved his name so well, for he spent the whole day in saun- 
 tering from one room to another, as if in search of what he could 
 never find-, " reminding us in this," said Fothergill, 44 of what was 
 observed of the old Duke of Newcastle, who, having lost an hour in 
 the morning, seemed to be running after it all the rest of the day." 
 With all this he was so good-natured and well-principled that 
 everybody liked him, though esteem was often withheld, from the 
 consequences of this his besetting sin. 
 
 " It was several years," said Fothergill in his manuscript, "after 
 Sir Simeon had done with college, or rather college with him (for 
 1. 16 
 
242 
 
 DE CLIFFORD $ 
 
 in truth he was rusticated for indolence, and never returned to as), 
 before I saw him again ; though he once did muster up exertion 
 enough to write me a letter, telling me that to avoid the bustle of 
 the world, for which at thirty he found he was unfit, he had retired 
 to what he called a Sabine farm he had in the county of Surry. 
 
 When I did see him it was under most appropriate circum- 
 stances. It had been my custom, after having been a long time to- 
 gether engaged in tuition, to give myself little relaxations, by ex- 
 cursions to London or elsewhere, as humour or the season prompted. 
 In one of these to the metropolis, after having made the tour of the 
 theatres, concerts, and all other exhibitions, I had pretty nearly 
 taken my fill of them, and began again to think of more serious 
 employments, when one morning, or rather afternoon, walking in 
 the park, I beheld a man more than half asleep on one of the 
 benches. By his dress he appeared a gentleman, and from his fea- 
 tures, in which there was a remarkable quietness, though his eyes 
 were closed, I thought I knew him 5 but when he waked and rose 
 soon afterwards, the slouch in his walk assured me he could be no 
 other than my old college acquaintance, Sir Simeon. 
 
 When I made myself known to him, he shewed as much pleasure 
 as a man of his habitual immoveableness could do, and after mutual 
 greetings and inquiries, I found he had as usual got tired of himself, 
 and was under great difficulty to know how to dispose of his ene- 
 my, lime. 
 
 " And yet," said I, " there is no want of means in this plaguy 
 pleasant place, London ; though the advance of the summer might 
 beckon you to your Sabine farm -" 
 
 "O! name it not, 1 ' said he, "or if you do, call it by its right 
 name, Monotony Hall. I fled from it for variety's sake, but am sorry 
 to say (he extreme of variety here is worse than the absence of it 
 there." 
 
 " What think you," asked I, " of a good long tour, at home or 
 abroad, and afterwards publishing your journal? You might disport 
 yourself in first visiting, and then describing, either cities or deserts 5 
 things animate or inanimate ; emperors, ministers, and beautiful 
 duchesses 5 or rocks, rivers, and forests. This would force exertion 
 — which is all you want." 
 
 " Exertion! " exclaimed he, " It is a consummation devoutly to 
 
 He could not even finish the line, but with a significant toss of 
 his chin, and a long protracted yawn, gave me to understand it was 
 a happiness beyond his power. 
 
 "For what could I propose to myself," said he, " in a tour, shut 
 up in a close carriage, because I cannot bear an open one, or 
 lounging in the cabin of a packet-boat, because I get tired of the 
 bustle upon deck ? What could I derive from poring over a book 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 243 
 
 of roads, or at best a view by others of the countries I came to visit 
 myself? Then as to a journal of what I saw— delightful in the 
 contemplation — impossible in the execution! I attempted it once, 
 but was so occupied with the description, that I scarce ever saw what 
 I was describing." 
 
 "Well, then," said I, "if you cannot journalize what you see, 
 record what you think. The record of a man's mind may be still 
 more interesting than what he sees." 
 
 " Ah ! " returned he, "I have tried that too, to relieve the flat- 
 ness of solitude in my Sabine farm, as you call it, but soon grew so 
 much ashamed of myself that I discontinued it. It was like Prince 
 Darling's ring 5 it pricked my finger so, that I broke it all to pieces, 
 and threw the fragments into the fire." 
 
 At this he seemed embarrassed, and even blushed, especially 
 when I said, perhaps a little unfeelingly, 
 
 "If this is the case, I am afraid I have no hope for you." 
 
 To encourage him, however, I alluded to his professed love of 
 literature, and asked him why he did not continue a resource so 
 never-failing. 
 
 "Why, there again," replied he, "I have the curse of indolence; 
 a fortune just enough to indulge, but not enough to cure it. If 1 
 were again at school, and afraid of a flogging, I might again read. 
 Afraid of nobody but myself, I am so extremely good-natured, or 
 perhaps so little disposed to the trouble of correcting my faults, 
 that I forgive them, and even, I fear, like them too well to part 
 with them. However, do you know I am all the better for this con- 
 fession ? I feel roused by it, and had I such a friend as you always 
 at my elbow, I really believe I might do something. For example, 
 if you would come and see, or rather reside with me during a va- 
 cation, I might perhaps recover a taste for reading, and not let it 
 evaporate as I do in newspapers and magazines g though they also 
 are now so confoundedly deep and reflective, that it requires exer- 
 tion to keep pace even with them. What say you to it?" added 
 he, brightening. " If your time is not engaged, will you accept my 
 proposal, and go home with me to-morrow?" 
 
 " I might have many worse offers," answered I, though with 
 hesitation. 
 
 "Then why not say yes?" added he, and the thought itself 
 kindled something like activity in his countenance and manner. 
 
 I asked for time to consider 5 and promising him an answer the 
 next day, we separated. 
 
 On my return home to my lodgings in the King's Road, the 
 nursery-gardens smelt and looked so sweet, and the daisies and li- 
 lacs seemed so much what they have been called, the lovely har- 
 bingers of spring, that they very much seconded the invitation of Sir 
 Simeon. I had, in fact, had enough of liberty, and, perhaps, fear- 
 
BE CLIFFORD; 
 
 ing I might grow ioo much like Sir Simeon himself, I resolved to 
 accept his proposal. 
 
 He was overjoyed when 1 told him so; began that instant to pack 
 up his trunks; and, spite of the remonstrances of John, his man — 
 to whom, in general, to save trouble, I found he allowed a most 
 absolute sway over his movements — he resolved we should set off 
 the next day. 
 
 This John (whom in time I learned to call Saunter's governor, 
 from his lecturing him pretty freely upon whatever did not please 
 John himself), earnestly opposed his going home. 
 
 Ci You are never happy there," said he, "nor well neither : I 
 always say it does not suit you, though I cannot well tell what does 
 — for you never shoot, you never go to sizes, nor even to races ; 
 and though so close to Brighton, you are afraid of meeting the 
 prince, or the east wind. You lose money by farming; we can 
 seldom get you on horseback, though you gave Lady Norton fifty 
 guineas for her pad because she said it was too quiet for her ; and 
 you hate visitors like poison. I always say a country life does not 
 suit you, and so this here gentleman, who has persuaded you to go 
 back, will find when he gets to the Hermitage." 
 
 It was in vain I protested to Mr. John, that I had really no 
 share in the movement ; that it was his master's own resolution, 
 who, I supposed, knew best what best agreed with him. 
 
 " No he don't though," replied the valet governor, " and you 
 may soon find that out if you come along with us. People as has 
 nothing to do but eat their dinners never know how to please 
 themselves in that even, let alone other things. I think it a little 
 odd you should know master belter than me, who have served him 
 ten years ; however, I suppose we must go, and so I won't take 
 no more trouble about it." 
 
 This was said with a mixture of huflishness with good-nature, 
 and being wholly unchecked by his master, 1 found the latter was 
 in one of those domestic dilemmas from which few can deliver 
 themselves — that of being governed by his servant. I was only 
 fearful that Mr. John would consider and therefore hate me, as a 
 rival — which might disturb my quiet at the Hermitage, to which 
 I had begun to look forward with some pleasure. 
 
 However, I left my friend fully resolved upon the plan he had 
 proposed, and preparing to think instantly of a scheme for our stu- 
 dies, in which, if he had but such a companion, he said, as I, he 
 was sure he should make great progress. 
 
 The next day we set off for Surry; and upon our arrival at the 
 end of the private way to the house, out of the high road to Rye- 
 gate, near which it was situated, we were stopped some lime by the 
 gate, which, instead of being erect, lay flat across the entrance — 
 in fact, torn from its remaining hinge, the other having long been 
 
OR, THE- CONSTANT MAN. 245 
 
 broken, without being renewed. This produced an actual scold (a 
 bold exertion) from Sir Simeon to John. 
 
 "Have I not often told you," said he, " to get that unfortunate 
 gale mended?" 
 
 " Yes ! " replied John, "but you as often told me not to do it, 
 for you wanted an alteration, and would plan it yourself, which you 
 never did." 
 
 Sir Simeon was dumb. 
 
 Having got over the interruption, we arrived at the house, which, 
 though originally comfortable, was in a most neglected stale. Se- 
 veral of the windows had been broken, and the panes replaced with 
 oiled paper, which having again been blown in by the wind, was 
 now flapping about in most comfortless disorder. The whole front 
 seemed to have been a stranger to paint for several years, and the 
 frames of the windows and doors exhibited not a few symptoms of 
 dry-rot. 
 
 Had my friend been a miser, which he was not, I should have 
 set this down to niggardliness. But I soon discovered that it arose 
 from the same source as all his other faults — procrastination. He 
 confessed that he had designed ^thorough repair for several years, 
 and it was not therefore worth while to be troubled with a partial 
 one 5 all was to be done at once. This he deferred till he should 
 settle at what watering place he should pass the summer, while the 
 repair was to be done in his absence \ but as this never was settled^ 
 and he never had been absent, all remained as it was. 
 
 On entering the house, I discovered that John was not the only 
 domestic who assumed a right to regulate the conduct of the master. 
 We were met on the steps by a tall, well-made, comely woman, 
 with a quick eye and very active manner, with a letter in her hand 
 which she seemed only just to have received, Not in the least mind- 
 ing me, she accosted her master (brandishing the letter at him) 
 with — 
 
 " This is so like you, Sir Simeon, not to give one the least no- 
 tice of your meaning to return, till you come yourself, all of a jerk. 
 I have only this moment received your letter, and if it had been 
 written a week ago it would have been no more than was right, to 
 get the house in order, it is in such a pickle. And as for the strange 
 gentleman (looking at me), I don't know where to put him, for I 
 was resolved to have the painters in the blue chamber, to keep it 
 from perishing." 
 
 I own I was surprised at such a lecture from a housekeeper to 
 her master, and not less at the quiescence with which he took it. 
 
 " Well," said he, 44 Mary, do not be angry, that's a good wo- 
 man, but take it quietly 5 and I dare say we shall do very well, if 
 you will only be good-humoured and exert yourself." 
 
 At this Mrs. Mary, with rather a suppressed laugh, between a 
 
246 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 smile and a sneer, retired across the hall, muttering pretty audibly, 
 "Exert myself! Yes! I needs must, for you never do and 
 with this she vanished to give directions to her maids. 
 
 This was to me quite a new scene, but I was sorry to see it 
 fretted my friend, who was even abashed when he led the way into 
 a parlour that was quite dark from the shutters not yet having been 
 opened \ nor was he consoled by Mrs. Mary's returning to perform 
 that duty, and observing in rather a rallying tone, 
 
 41 Ah ! like master like man, as the saying is. No wonder we are 
 all lazy in this house." 
 
 This, however, was qualified by a good-humoured and really 
 taking smile (for she was extremely well-looking), as if to make up 
 to her master for the brusquerie of her reception of him. 
 
 This smile restored the peace which I feared might have been 
 broken, not by Sir Simeon, who exhibited much patience, but by 
 the handsome housekeeper, who seemed to be quite sensible of the 
 power which her beauty, or her management, or both, gave her 
 over her chief. 
 
 Well, the room was at last set in order, and a question was made 
 about dinner. 
 
 "What can you give us, Mary ?" asked Sir Simeon coaxingly. 
 
 " Give you ! " quoth the lady, resuming something of her flip- 
 pancy, 44 what can you expect? When people come without notice, 
 they must only look for pot-luck, as the saying is. There is nothing 
 in the house but cold meat, and eggs and bacon, and it is too late to 
 send to Ryegate to the butcher s." 
 
 Sir Simeon looked at me inquiringly, and I thought it right, in 
 a tone which, had it been to a duchess, could not have been more 
 civil, to assure Mrs. Mary that nothing could be more agreeable to 
 my taste than what she had proposed, particularly accompanied as 
 it was with so much neatness, and such a kind welcome as she had 
 shewn. 
 
 This drew another smile from the concierge, who even dropt me 
 a courtesy, said I was very polite, and she would endeavour to find 
 me a comfortable room, though the blue one was, as she observed, 
 all, she did not know how. 
 
 64 She is a good creature," said Sir Simeon, as she left the room, 
 a only a little touchy now and then, when she is put out, as it must 
 be owned she has been by so sudden an arrival." 
 
 To this I assented, and my friend, to pass the time while dinner 
 was getting ready, proposed to shew me his garden. Here was wild 
 work 5 it was indeed 44 unweeded, and grown to seed ; " nettles and 
 thistles in as much or more abundance than coleworts or cauli- 
 flowers. The roses were stifled by field poppies, and the sweet vio- 
 let by quitch-grass. The walks, too, which had once been gravel, 
 were entirely covered and wet with moss 5 yet there were two men 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAIN. 247 
 
 and a boy apparently at work, and Sir Simeon told me he was pas- 
 sionately fond of gardens. What is more, I really believe he was so, 
 but it was of those which 
 
 4 Live in description, and look green in song." 
 
 In fact, I observed, in the course of a very few days, that the pas- 
 sion was solely in the imagination, which indeed allowed him charm- 
 ingly to lounge on a sofa, and drink the pages of Yirgil and De 
 Lisle, without troubling himself with spades or pruning-knives. To 
 bestir himself personally, or do more than express a wish (for he 
 scarcely ever reached the energy of an order, and that was always 
 through his prime minister John), was far beyond his power. 
 
 "It is sad," said he, on seeing that I observed the desolation, 
 " to think how my people treat me. Day after day have I ordered 
 these beds to be trimmed — for the epithet of trim belongs appro- 
 priately to a garden — and yet you see what a state it is in. That 
 gap, too, in the quickset, through which those confounded fowls, 
 and even sheep, enter when they please, I have ordered ten times 
 to be mended, yet it is not done." 
 
 "Did you speak to the gardener yourself ? " asked I. 
 
 "No I but I sent him a good scold by John." 
 
 " Which perhaps was never delivered." 
 
 Sir Simeon turned a little red, but presently said, "Well, my 
 good friend, I am glad, however, that you are with me. We will 
 now keep things in order 5 the first step to which is, I own, to keep 
 me in order myself 5 which, though no easy matter, perhaps you 
 will kindly undertake." 
 
 Pleased with this candour, I told him not to despair, as the first 
 step to cure a fault was to be sensible of its existence. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, with a sort of uneasiness in his look, " that is 
 very well in theory, and I have told myself so fifty times, till, by 
 dint of confessing, I have got so used to it, that my conscience is 
 no longer pricked. I begin even to compound with the disease, and 
 think it not altogether fatal, though dangerous. But," added he, 
 with his usual fondness for Horace, " I never was one of those 
 
 — Quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum 
 Collegisse juvat '.' 
 
 I am content, nay, seem to have bargained, to leave this to your 
 more active spirits, provided you leave me in my turn 
 
 ' Stratus nunc ad aquae lene caput sacra V " 
 
 " 1 perceive," said I, " your taste for Horace has not left you. 
 
 * «« Whom it delights 
 
 In clouds th' Olympic dust to roll." — Francis' Horace. 
 2 " At some soft flowing fountain's head, 
 
 Or in the shade his limbs are spread," — Id, 
 
248 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 and he will, no doubt, make part of our readings together. I sup- 
 pose you have matured the plan for our studies, which you said it 
 would be such a pleasure to you instantly to arrange." 
 
 He smiled again at his own procrastination, but, like most pro- 
 crastinators, had a reason for it. 
 
 44 Why, I did think of it," said he, " and fell asleep with medi- 
 tating upon it yesterday after dinner \ but who can arrange a plan 
 of study at an hotel in a tumultuous town ? so I thought I would 
 defer it till we got down here, where, too, I might have thebenefiS 
 of your assistance." 
 
 44 You are sure," said I, 44 you thought of all this?" 
 
 " Quite sure," replied he ; but all further discussion was put an 
 end to by Mr. John's advancing on the walk, to announce that dinner 
 was on the table, and to ask what wine he should put out. 
 
 "•I think we will have the old hockheim," answered Sir Simeon. 
 
 " I think not," said Mr. John 5 " you know it always gripes you." 
 
 " Well, but Mr. Fothergill might like it," observed his master, 
 arguing the matter. 
 
 44 It's very expensive," replied John • 44 and I thought the gentle- 
 man was your intimate friend. I think port might do." 
 
 44 Coufound your impudence," retorted his master, now roused 
 to real anger, and looking very red. 44 You abuse my indulgence, 
 sirrah ! and I will certainly do what I have often said — dismiss you 
 my service." 
 
 44 1 don't think you will," muttered John, sotto voce, and as if 
 to himself, but so as to be heard. 
 
 44 There it is," observed my friend, cooling, as John got out of 
 sight; 44 the rascal believes, what I am afraid is true, that I cannot do 
 without him, and takes liberties upon it." 
 
 44 And Mrs. Mary," said I, rather perhaps too significantly, for I 
 perceived he did not like it, and I was sorry to think it might spoil 
 the digestion of a good dinner, one of the great helps to which, as 
 is held by all dietetic doctors, is good humour. 
 
 When we entered the dining-room we found the aforesaid Mrs. 
 Mary, who had arrayed herself in a silk gown, standing at the head 
 of the table, with a carving-knife and fork in her hands, and pre- 
 paring to do the office it indicated for her master. This, I saw, an- 
 noyed him, for he actually frowned at her, as he said, 
 
 "Not now, Mrs. Quickly 5 you see I have company, and I sup- 
 pose we can carve for ourselves without troubling you." 
 
 44 You never do so, by yourself," replied the lady, 44 and I thought 
 you would want me § but do as you please—I see I am not wished 
 for." 
 
 And she flounced out of the room in something very like a passion. 
 For my part, I did not know what to think of these exhibitions, 
 and feared downright rebellion in the two real managers of the 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN • 
 
 249 
 
 bouse, for it was plain the master did not manage it himself ; so, to 
 conciliate peace, I begged that he would make no alteration in his 
 usual table habits on my account. 
 
 " If Mrs. Mary has been accustomed," said I, " to— — ." 
 
 " O! dear, no ! " he replied, pretty briskly (though I could see 
 Mr. John turn his head to the sideboard to conceal a laugh), " I 
 would never permit such a thing as a regular custom ; only as Mary 
 is an excellent carver, and I own I like to have things done for me, 
 besides being a very bad carver myself, she sometimes, when quite 
 alone " 
 
 "Sits down with you, I suppose," interrupted I, observing that 
 there was actually a third plate laid at the table ; " and I beg to say 
 I shall be distressed — — - " 
 
 " You are quite wrong," interrupted he in his turn, as if piqued, 
 and mustering a tone of courage 5 a she is my servant, but not my 
 companion, though certainly often of great use to a man who is an 
 invalid, lives so much alone, and- " 
 
 What he was going to add, I was prevented from knowing, by 
 a violent fit of sneezing which seized Mr. John at the sideboard, 
 unfortunately, so like a laugh, that his master was annoyed at it-, 
 the prudent domestic, however, diverted it by saying, 
 
 " Indeed, Sir Simeon, you and the gentleman had better eat your 
 dinners 5 the eggs be already cold, and you may tell him all about 
 Mary afterwards." 
 
 I thought this motion so proper, that I seconded it, and Sir Simeon 
 shewing no disposition to keep up the subject, we began to attack 
 the dinner in good earnest. The eggs were soon dispatched, as 
 well as a cold shoulder of lamb, which Mrs. Mary had intended for 
 her private eating, and the hock proving excellent, we did not 
 refrain, on account of the expense which had occasioned John's 
 regrets, from doing it ample justice. 
 
 After this was dispatched, Sir Simeon proposed coffee, u which 
 Mary," said he, " makes admirably, and generally pours it out 
 herself, let who will be here 5 so, as she is seemingly proud of it, 
 I like to indulge her. I hope you have no objection." 
 
 Whether I had or not would have signified little, for the rustling 
 of her silk gown announced that Mrs. Mary was at the door, and 
 she entered, coffee in hand, observing, rather briskly, that we 
 ought to drink it directly, or it would get cold, and that nothing 
 was so bad as cold coffee. She set us, indeed, an example of her 
 sincerity in what she preached, by taking a cup herself, for there 
 were three on the board. 
 
 Seeing my friend again a little embarrassed, I did not seem to 
 remark this, but began to treat Mrs. Mary as one of the company, 
 to which she plainly seemed to think herself entitled; and as I saw 
 Sir Simeon was puzzled how (0 behave upon it, I directed some 
 
"250 DE CLIFFOItD } 
 
 civilities to her, which had so good an effect, that when she rose 
 to leave us she said she was glad that Sir Simeon ( for she did not 
 call him master) had brought down so agreeable a gentleman with 
 him as a companion, " which I always told him," added she " was 
 all he wanted." 
 
 I now began to see plainly that my friend, with all his mental 
 acquirements, was in a state of absolute pupilage to both his ser- 
 vants-, a degradation of which it was doubtful whether he was even 
 ashamed, but which, at all events, it was evident he could not break 
 through 5 and I own I was much struck to think of such vicis- 
 situdes in the history of human nature. Here was a man of birth, 
 fortune, and education, and a mind by no means incapable of en- 
 joying them, reduced to absolutely worse than a cypher, from the 
 sheer indulgence of constitutional indolence. 
 
 This phenomenon, for such it seemed, though it only broke 
 upon me by degrees in the course of the evening, was demonstrated 
 the next day, in still greater clearness, when Sir Simeon very can- 
 didly lamented his case to me, and put it to my friendship to ex- 
 tricate him from what he called this domestic tyranny. 
 
 To try him, I said he ought to marry. 
 
 "Why, no,' 1 said he, with some awkwardness of look 5 "there 
 are many things which make that impossible." 
 
 I asked what? but all I could get from him was the trouble it 
 would cost to court a woman proper for him in the eye of the 
 world ; not to mention that the tyranny of a wife would be worse 
 than that of a servant. 
 
 " The one/' added he, with something resembling firmness, 
 " I may discharge." 
 
 4 4 If you dare, or have the power," observed I, at which he red- 
 dened, and gave a deep sigh. " Gome," I continued, really feeling 
 for his embarrassment, " I see how it is; you would rather bear 
 the ills you have, than fly to others which you know not of." 
 
 " Thank you, thank you," said he 5 " I believe that is the true 
 secret. I can bear with these people, because, knowing that they 
 are not my equals, I think I can assert myself when I please 5 but 
 not so if I married a woman of family, who would always be stand- 
 ing on her rights, and would browbeat me out of my life, if only 
 to assert them. Besides, I must own, what I dare say you have 
 already discovered, that from being so early my own master in the 
 world, I have indulged my constitutional indolence and indecision 
 till I am unfit for it, or almost to live with any companions but those 
 you see." 
 
 To encourage him, I told him that he who knew his own disease 
 so well had made the first step towards recovery. 
 
 He hesitated awhile, but then opening a drawer, he said, 
 
 " Alas! I fear recovery is hopeless, and you will probably say so 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 251 
 
 loo when you have perused this. I told you I had sometimes, in 
 very want of other employment, underlaken a journal, which, 
 from shame, I almost always destroyed as soon as written. This 
 little record of only one month of my useless life is the only one 
 that has escaped, and will prove to you how vain to me have been 
 all the adventitious gifts of what men call good fortune, and how 
 much the lowest menial of my house, while he perhaps envies my 
 lot, might be himself the object of envy to his master." 
 
 At these words he put inlo my hands a small roll of paper. 
 give it you," said he, " as my mental case, and as, if it were a bodily 
 one, I would give it my physician. But our minds, perhaps, want 
 physicians even more than our bodies. I feel that your presence 
 here has already done me good." 
 
 I thanked him for this confidence, and was proceeding to read, 
 when, with his usual disposition to procrastinate, he said, 
 
 " No 5 not how : by-and-by, if you please. To-night, to-morrow, 
 or next-day, will do quite as well. Besides, the post is just arrived 
 with the daily and weekly pape*&; and — thanks to the confounded 
 energies of the press — merely to read, much more to digest, requires 
 no small consumption of time; but, in short, it is the only reading 
 I venture upon." 
 
 "Well," said I, rather anxious to peruse the journal, which I 
 thought would interest my love of exploring character, " you shall 
 not balk the fit while upon you ; your arm-chair and desk, I see, 
 court you, and while you settle the politics of Europe, I " 
 
 "I hate all the political part of a newspaper," interrupted he, 
 " and always skip it, or lay it by for a more convenient time." 
 
 " Which time," said I, " never comes." 
 
 " Not far wrong there," replied he. " In truth, discussion bores 
 me $ the cloudiness of the limes alarms me 5 the weakness of our 
 governors does not assure me; and the scurrility of parties dis- 
 gusts me." 
 
 u For heaven's sake, then," asked I, " what part of a newspaper 
 does occupy you?" 
 
 u O! a great deal of it," answered he. 4 'The advertisements, all 
 of which I ponder, not only amuse, but instruct me in all that is 
 really going on in trade, the arts, literature, and science, better 
 than all the most elaborate leading articles, which are generally 
 false estimates of every thing, every man, and every transaction of 
 life. Then there are the deaths, births, and marriages; and the 
 police reports, which give a truer history of the animal called man 
 than all the columns of all the patriots, economists, and political 
 philosophers put together." 
 
 I could not help smiling at this ingenuity of defence in ex- 
 cusing himself from every semblance of exertion, even in reading 
 a newspaper but wishing to examine what I thought would be a 
 
252 
 
 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 rich curiosity, his journal, without the restraint of his presence, 
 I said I would retire with it to my own room, and leave him to 
 investigate the increase or decrease of our population in the deaths 
 and marriages, and the history of man in the records of Bow Street. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 MISCHIEFS OF INDOLENCE.— DANGERS OF INTERFERING IN OTHER PEOPLE'S AFFAIRS. 
 
 Is not this a strange fellow, my lord, that so conlidently seems to undertake 
 this business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do, and 
 dares better bedamn'd than do t? 
 
 Shakspeare.— AWs Well that Ends Well. 
 
 My own experience often makes me pity any sincere man who 
 undertakes to record the operations of his own mind in its every 
 day dress. For whatever the virtd^ or ability of the journalist, ten 
 thousand to one, if he be honest, his pages will depict a great deal 
 of weakness, a great deal of vanity, or a great deal of folly. What 
 good did the historian of his own heart, or of his own actions, 
 ever do, except amuse the world by making them laugh at him •, or 
 instruct them to avoid, by making them hale his faults? 
 
 Do we want proofs of this? Search the memoirs of Montpensier 
 and Madame Roland, who are so good as to reveal their personal 
 charms to the world ; or Rousseau, who revealed all his vices *, or 
 Laud, who revealed his secret superstition ; or Doddington, who 
 seemed to boast of his venality ; or Watson, or Cumberland, or Gil- 
 bert Wakefield, who, gifted with learning and powerful intellect, 
 disfigured themselves with vanities — in the first two, most amusing ; 
 in the last, most disgusting 
 
 O that mine enemy would write a book ! was the wish of an in- 
 jured man, panting for revenge. He would have improved upon it 
 had he wished that book a journal. But if he does write one, let 
 him have a care how he publishes it — or shews it, you will say, to 
 a friend who will publish it for him. 
 
 Poor, dear Sir Simeon! But he is gone-, and as his tranquillity 
 cannot be disturbed, and it may do good to those who are devoutly 
 disposed to imitate him, I will venture to tell them what they may 
 come to. Besides, as he bequeathed me all his papers, to do what 
 I pleased with, it is scarcely, even virtually, a breach of confidence. 
 
 ' Nothing is here meant in derogation of the learned, the sensible, the perspicuous, the 
 eloquent Bishop of Llandaff, whose abilities and firm integrity cannot be disparaged even 
 by the vanity scattered up and down his memoirs. But while the divine, the schoolman, 
 and the patriot politician may profit much by them, at thai vanity they have a legitimate 
 right to iaugh. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT' MAN. 
 
 253 
 
 Well g behold me in my arm-chair above stairs, probing my 
 friend in all his weaknesses, as laid bare by himself, with a view 
 to be a beacon to himself. It is thus he begins : — 
 
 " I know my besetting sin, and this shall be its record, in order 
 to warn me of its mischiefs. I am, and have been long, a slave, 
 from sheer impatience of restraints upon my liberty. I am cursed 
 with a fortune which delivers me from all attention to others, all 
 regard to forms, and all anxiety to do any thing but to please myself; 
 and it always pleases myself to do nothing at all. 
 
 " But I will say, in the words of a man whom I resemble in 
 nothing but his idleness and procrastination, ' Desidice vale dixi, 
 Syrenis istius cantibus surdum posthac aurem obversurus* ' . 
 If the world knew me, I am a confounded hypocrite. I am reckoned 
 good-tempered, but it is because I am too indolent to be angry 5 
 generous, because it is too much trouble to refuse what I am asked. 
 But will I take pains to do any man good? Alas ! no, Why, then, 
 should I draw my own picture? 
 
 " But let me not answer that at present, for I only intend to draw 
 it. I have already done enough, and lay aside my pen." 
 
 This was in the very spirit of the man, and accordingly, from 
 the dates (for he actually did put dates to his exertions), I find he 
 did not renew his intentions till that day month. I then found the 
 following entry : — 
 
 " Day the first.— Received a long letter, with longer accounts, 
 from my agent, requiring an immediate answer, which I resolved 
 to give; but the weather wet, cold, and comfortless. Not in spirits 
 to write-, so put the letter on my desk, to answer it the next 
 morning. 
 
 " Had a fall, from the carpet being un nailed. Mem. — To have 
 it nailed directly 5 but John out of the way. 
 
 "Day the second. — Weather the same. Unfortunately the house- 
 maid, who is far too tidy, had put my agent's Setter out of sight, 
 and 1 forgot it. Stumbled again over the carpet; John never in the 
 way, 
 
 u Day the third, — Observed my grandfather's picture hung 
 awry. Got upon a chair to put it straight, but could not reach it. 
 Looked for the steps, but they were not in the room. Steps are 
 always out of the way. Mem. — To tell John about the picture as 
 well as the carpet. 
 
 "'Day the fourth.— Picture still crooked; had forgot to tell 
 John; looks very awkward. 
 
 "Day the fifth.— Found my agent's letter in the drawer of the 
 inkstand. Gave me a, nervous fit, and sat down to answer it; but 
 on looking at my watch, found the post would be gone before I 
 
 1 A diary of Johnson quoted by Boswell .— " I bid farewell to sloth, resolved henceforth 
 to turn a deaf ear to her syren strains. " 
 
•254 
 
 DE CLIFFORD $ 
 
 could finish, so put it off till evening, when I felt too sleepy for ac- 
 counts, so postponed it till morning. 
 
 u Day the sixth. — In excellent humour for commencing my 
 journal, or reading, and resolved to pass the morning in the library, 
 but found the windows shut up, and had not been opened this month. 
 Too close and damp to sit in it. 
 
 " N.B. — Servants always as bad, or worse, than their masters. 
 My letter again out of sight, and I was too much occupied with 
 subjects of study to think of it, My grandfather not yet put straight. 
 I wonder John's own eyes do not see it without being told. Strange 
 that I should always forget to tell him, as it is very offensive. Mary, 
 however, found out the carpet, and nailed it herself without being 
 told. A good creature that; much shocked when she heard I had 
 had a fail." 
 
 I was not unnaturally curious to find out what his love of study 
 produced 5 but all that I got was, that his books, which had been 
 put up promiscuously on the shelves, to save time, some months be- 
 fore, had never been classed, and he could not possibly read till 
 they were. This he resolved ( for he was always resolving) should 
 be done by his own hand ; but finding he could do it belter by John's, 
 under his direction, and John always pleading some excuse for nen- 
 attendance (not unwillingly accepted by his master), the library 
 and the desire of study remained in statu quo, as I suppose did the 
 agent's letter, for it never was mentioned again. 
 
 The following entry was characteristic : — 
 
 " Wednesday morning, 9 o'clock.— Had very little sleep, so 
 resolved to lie a while. Broad awake, and in a reverie $ yet could 
 not tell what I was thinking of. Got up at last, but found it was 
 eleven, so put off shaving till after breakfast. Sal in night-gown 
 and slippers. Put on one shoe ; but, taking up Shakspeare, forgot 
 the other. 
 
 64 Resolved lo begin another journal, though so many had failed. 
 Spread paper for that purpose. Got as far as the dale, and 4 I in- 
 tend" — but found the ink clotty and difficult to write with. Wished 
 to ring for John to change it, but, as he was coming to take away 
 the breakfast-things, thought I would wait. He did not come for an 
 hour, when I had lost the thread of my reflections, and gave up 
 the journal for that morning. Meantime I had begun to dress, but 
 my eye having caught a view of the old church tower and the rook- 
 ery, I leaned back in my chair, and fell into a charming remi- 
 niscence of old limes, which lasted till John came in, and I had then 
 forgot what I wanted. 
 
 44 Felt my beard, and as it was not very rough, thought I would 
 go without shaving; but John said he was sure Mrs. Prettyman 
 would call about the lease of her house, as it was so fine, and we had 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 255 
 
 been so long in settling it. So I ordered the water 5 but before it 
 came (John is always confoundedly long), I had again taken up 
 Henry IV., and lost myself in Eastcheap, Shrewsbury, Gualtree 
 Forest, and Justice Shallow, and before I had done, the stable clock 
 struck one, and the water was cold. Servants being all gone to din- 
 ner, I did not like to disturb them for more, and walked out into 
 the grove in my dressing-gown. 
 
 4 4 Weather fine, and rooksdelighlful. Their cawing always soothes 
 me. Enjoyed it while silting on the long bench under the lime 
 tree, which smelt very sweet, and the bees would have hummed me 
 to sleep had not John, having finished his dinner, bored me again 
 with Mrs. Prettyman, and insisted I should shave. Felt my beard 
 again, and not being in a humour to hold the razor myself, told 
 him to fetch Suds the barber, though I hale his dirty fingers and bad 
 razors. As Suds lives a quarter of a mile off, I hoped this would 
 give me a quarter of an hour's respite ; but in five minutes horribly 
 alarmed by a ringing at the gate. Mrs. Prettyman going to town 
 in her coach and four, and nobody to answer but Dolly Cook. Un- 
 fortunate that Mary was gone up to Ryegale. Should not have 
 minded it, only Mrs. Prettyman is such a fine lady, and, to give 
 consequence to her son, who has an eye to the county, will always 
 travel in her coach and four. Fool enough to be ashamed, and 
 sneaked in at the side door, but thought it needless to wash till Suds 
 came. 
 
 " John returned without him, for he was out. Confound them 
 both : but as I could not keep Mrs. Prettyman waiting (for I was 
 afraid the lease would never be signed), I was forced to appear, 
 after all, without being shaved. 
 
 " This was not the worst, for, unfortunately, she piques herself 
 upon being a woman of business, and would not sign till she had 
 heard every word of the lease read over, which — as I never can find 
 the places in reading a lease, was no small matter. I wonder why 
 the devil law language should be so totally different from any other. 
 
 ¥> Thank heaven, Mrs. Prettyman would not stay for the luncheon 
 which John, in his officiousness, brought in upon a tray, and I was 
 left my own master for the rest of the day 5 only when Mary came 
 in, she flew into a passion because Mrs. Prettyman called when she 
 was out, which she said she was sure was by design. 
 
 " N.B. The report is revived that I have views upon the rich 
 widow. Heaven knows my innocence' — but it annoys Mary, who 
 says she supposes she will be discharged ; and there is no peace in 
 the house when she is angry." 
 
 This, though the record of only one morning, being a pretty ac- 
 curate specimen of the manner in which my friend passed his time 
 for a month (for he then went to London, to get rid of himself, and 
 probably of Mrs. Mary), I do not think it necessary to record more, 
 
256 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 except that there were not a few traces of good-nature to persons in 
 the neighbourhood, which, for his honour, ought to be told. 
 
 I observed, however, that my friend was always more free to give 
 money than advice 5 the latter requiring much more attention. He 
 had therefore hit upon an ingenious method to indulge his indo- 
 lency and good-nature at the same time ; — for in all cases of country 
 business, he had bargained with a neighbouring attorney to answer 
 questions for him, at the rate of haif-a-crown a case, which in the 
 end proved very pretty pickings to the said attorney. I observed, 
 too, that in cases where pecuniary assistance was to be afforded, 
 Mrs. Mary was chiefly commissioned to proportion and distribute 
 the bounty ; which, as she had a long list of dependants and poor 
 relations of her own, was chiefly, or entirely, confined to them. In 
 Shis, too, no wonder if the caprice attributed (though so unjustly ) 
 fo the sex when they have power, was sometimes apparent : at 
 least I occasionally found such entries as these : — ■ 
 
 " I begin to think I have given Mary too much power \ indeed I 
 fear she has too much influence over me, and abuses it. The five 
 pounds she gave to her first cousin, twice removed, the other day, 
 was neither necessary nor deserved, for John tells me he could 
 maintain his family very well, but is drunken and idle, and I hate 
 idlers 1 while the poor housemaid, whom she turned away for 
 being, as she said, disrespectful, and too handsome for a housemaid, 
 she refused to assist, though she supports her sick father and little 
 brothers. I must take the management of this into my own hands." 
 
 I was in hopes this would produce some kind of reform in the 
 almonry, or at least some diminution of the housekeeper's in- 
 fluence. But no ! the next entry was this : — 
 
 44 1 am terribly infatuated by this woman. When I scolded her 
 for not carrying the three guineas to the widow towards her rent, 
 she had the insolence to say she wanted it herself for the silk gown 
 I had promised her, to give her a better air in my household. That 
 was no reason for her not carrying the money to the widow. How- 
 ever, I believe she is attached to me, and I did certainly promise 
 her the silk gown 5 and besides, any thing for a quiet life. I must 
 send John to the widow." 
 
 Such memorials as these, of the increasing weakness of a mind 
 capable of good, but ruined by being totally surrendered to the be- 
 setting power of sloth, made me tremble for my friend's happiness: 
 and, indeed, I began to fear that there were ties between him and 
 his housekeeper, always degrading to a man who has any regard 
 to reputation, often therefore lamentable and even irksome, and 
 yet which even the firmest in other respects cannot always break 
 through. I feared that this woman, who preferred her own silk 
 gown to the relief of a poor widow, might be a mistress, nor was 
 sny fear the less that she should be a wife. Either way, my friend's 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 257 
 
 liberty, and therefore his happiness, was overthrown. I resolved 
 to search out the secret, and if not too late, to endeavour to restore 
 him to himself, though that might be only to a less disreputable 
 state of vegetation. 
 
 An opportunity was not long wanting, for that very evening we 
 took a walk, which Mrs. Mary allowed, afler buttoning him up to 
 the chin in a cloak, though the height of summer, the evening air, 
 she said, always making him sneeze, and if a cough came on he 
 never got rid of it; all which he submitted to with the resignation 
 of a martyr. 
 
 At first we were both silent, and I observed that he frequently 
 looked behind him as if he feared being followed, till we had got 
 quite beyond his own precincts, into a little glen, which seemed 
 retired enough for any confidence. Here he began by frankly ask- 
 ing what I thought of his journal. 
 
 " That it is honesty and candour itself," said I. 
 
 44 That is not what I mean, I want your advice, perhaps your 
 assistance, in a matter which, if you have perused the journal with 
 attention, may have struck you. Indeed, it was for this end, I 
 own, that I commended it to your notice 5 for, without a word in 
 my own extenuation, you will have perceived that,I am in a weari- 
 some thraldom of the worst kind — thraldom to my own ser- 
 vants." 
 
 " To one in particular," observed I, watching his countenance. 
 He looked down, but without dissent. 
 
 4C It is a thraldom," continued I, " which your position ought 
 to be above 5 and, as you ask%iy opinion, you ought instantly, as 
 you may easily, deliver yourself from it." 
 
 " Easily I' 1 said he, and shook his head. 
 
 M Yes ; what is to prevent you, even on your return home, to 
 give both Mr. John and Mrs. Mary their dismissal?" 
 
 u What, without a cause? The thing is impossible. You surely 
 would not be so unjust. Besides, John is more necessary to me than 
 you people of energy are able to understand 5 and Mary—" 
 
 Here he hesilated. 
 Come," said I, " let us be frank to one another, and allow me 
 an important question ; are the bonds you are under to this seem- 
 ingly more than housekeeper — ■ — • " 
 
 " Bonds!" cried he, colouring as red as scarlet, " the journal, 
 surely, cannot have said any thing about the bonds?" 
 
 Here he again faltered. 
 
 44 It has made me suppose that you have not told me the whole 
 of your case in regard to this woman, or lady, as I presume I must 
 call her—" 
 
 " Lady !" interrupted he; 44 Ah ! if she were V? 
 
 44 What then? 
 
258 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 " We should all be very different." 
 
 46 My dear Sir Simeon," said I, solemnly, 44 I think I see the 
 truth, though you have either been unwilling, or not had the cou- 
 rage, to tell it me. Your housekeeper is more to you than she seems, 
 and you cannot get rid of her if you would. Is it not so?" 
 
 44 Perhaps you are right," returned he, with emotion, for he 
 trembled. 44 The bonds, which how you discovered, I cannot 
 guess, are to an immense amount, and are of consequence even to 
 my fortune." 
 
 " Bonds !" cried I in my turn, and asked his meaning. 
 
 44 Why you just now alluded to them, and they are for full five 
 thousand pounds." 
 
 44 I was both amazed and alarmed at the equivoque thus disco- 
 vered, which confirmed my suspicions, though to what extent was as 
 yet not quite clear. I therefore entreated him, by our old friendship, 
 to conceal nothing, but reveal his whole case, whatever it was, in 
 order not to deceive ourselves as to the remedy. 
 
 44 1 believe you to be a true friend ," said he in return, 44 and I 
 shall, perhaps, be relieved of a burthen by confiding every thing to 
 you. I am then — • — " 
 
 44 Married!" exclaimed I ; 44 married to your housekeeper?" 
 
 44 No thank heaven !" replied he; 44 not yet." 
 
 44 Something worse then." 
 
 44 No ! nor that — not yet." 
 
 I then gathered from him that his shyness, combined with his 
 too great love of ease, having driven him out of all society with his 
 equals, yet not liking to be perpetu^ly alone, he had admitted his 
 housekeeper to a more familiar companionship than her situation 
 as a menial warranted 5 — that she had first made his tea 5 then carved 
 for him at dinner, and for that purpose sat down at table, when it 
 would have been cruel not to have allowed her to eat a bit with him : 
 then, as he was often ill with colds, she generally warmed his bed, 
 tucked him up in it, aired his nightcap, and gave him his whey ; — 
 44 all which," said he, 44 she did at first in a manner so motherly, or 
 rather so sisterly' — for, indeed, she is only a year or two, or perhaps 
 three, older than myself " 
 
 Here he paused. 
 
 44 Why not," observed I, 44 say at once, so conjugally ; for that 
 is what I perceive is corning?" 
 
 44 Well, whatever it was," continued he, 44 the having her so 
 constantly with me, as I may say, at bed and board, and no one to 
 divert my thoughts from her, I began to conceive a great regard 
 for her." 
 
 44 Out of gratitude, I suppose?" 
 
 44 Why, no doubt at first. And then she was so extremely gentle 
 and respectful ( very different, I own, from what she is now ), thai 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 250 
 
 I began to think how comfortable a still closer intimacy would be ; 
 
 so after a few months going on in this way, I offered her " 
 
 " Not marriage, you say ?" 
 
 "Not positively, according to our forms, but what in Germany, 
 you know, is called a left-handed one, and this I thought she might 
 accept." 
 
 " And did, no doubt," said I. 
 
 " Why, no. She indeed appeared greatly shocked at first ; nay, 
 absolutely indignant 5 and vowed she would leave me, whatever it 
 cost her s that she did not think I would have taken such advantage 
 of her attachment to me 5 and she shed so many tears, and was in 
 such grief, for many days preparing to leave me, that I was at my 
 wit's end how to keep her. In short, she was so determined on 
 quitting me, and I felt what a loss she would be to me so severely, 
 that though my pride would not allow me, and I would not bind 
 myself to marry her according to law, and she was positive against 
 any other arrangement, it ended in my giving her a bond never to 
 marry any one else as long as she remained in my service." 
 
 I was astounded and grieved at such an instance of folly, such 
 want of energy, in my poor friend, but could not help asking, as 
 Mrs. Mary was so immaculate, what was the consideration given 
 for so improvident a bond? 
 
 " None," said he, "but that she should continue to reside with 
 me in quality of housekeeper, and not marry herself. Half also of 
 the penalty was to be forfeited, if I should dismiss her my service* 
 even though I did not marry." 
 
 Gracious heaven! thought I, to what may not sloth and cowardice 
 conduct us ! But as i really wished to know how an evidently art- 
 ful, but uninslructed menial could have so entangled a man of un- 
 derstanding, whose only weakness was in his nerves, I asked if all 
 this arrangement proceeded from Mrs. Mary alone, assisted as it 
 might be by his own weakness 5 in short, whether she had not had 
 some coadjutor in weaving this net for him ? 
 
 "Why certainly," replied he, "she had, and a powerful one 
 too, in her brother, one Quick, a lawyer at Ryegate, whom she 
 consulted several times on my proposal of a left-handed marriage^ 
 about which he was very loud and angry, and threatened to expose 
 me, of which I had a horror. Had it not been for him, I perhaps 
 should have succeeded, and at any rate have escaped this bond." 
 
 " And what may be the bent (I will not say the determination) of 
 your mind, upon this lamentable crisis, which you have well de- 
 nominated a thraldom?" 
 
 " Certainly not to marry her," returned he ; " for you have no 
 notion, Sir, how different she is from what she was at first. She 
 was then all calmness and submission, quite a lamb. She is now a 
 tiger cat." 
 
260 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 " Why nol dismiss her?' 1 said I. 44 Put a bold face upon it ; you 
 are rich enough, and the worst it can come to is to pay the half 
 penalty." 
 
 '.' II will never do," said he. 
 
 44 Why?" 
 
 * 4 Because the thought of it will break her heart, which, for all 
 her fits of passion, is I am sure attached to me. She will cry by the 
 hour, and I own I cannot withstand her tears." 
 
 "Pardon me," said I, affected, but indignant at this weakness of 
 a goodnature, "if I say that there is no hope for you, and you must 
 be abandoned to your fate." 
 
 44 That is hard," said he with a sigh, 44 but it cannot be helped." 
 
 We then began to move homewards, but were soon met by the 
 gardeners boy, whom Mrs. Mary had sent to find his master ; for 
 it was far too late for him to remain out, she said, and that if it had 
 not been for the strange gentleman, she would have come herself. 
 
 " You see," said Sir Simeon, not displeased, " how really she 
 loves me." 
 
 44 Or her own empire over you, 1 ' observed I. 
 
 44 Hush, for God's sake," replied he, as we entered the house. 
 
 At the tea-table, where Mrs. Mary now presided without scruple, 
 unopposed by Sir Simeon, she took upon herself to give me a 
 lecture for keeping him out so late, though it was August, and 
 only eight o'clock. People, she said, who did not know other 
 people's constitutions, ought not to treat them as if they were the 
 same as themselves. 44 1 have no doubt," added she, 44 that Sir 
 Simeon will have his lumbago again by sauntering in that damp 
 glen, and then who is to blame for it?" 
 
 In this talk at a person, I found Mrs. Mary quite an adept: for, 
 during the evening, and all the rest of the time that I staid with 
 my friend, she never addressed herself directly, either to him or 
 me. It was always 44 some folks do this," and 44 some folks ought 
 to know that with many Gther innuendoes, in which she shewed 
 considerable ingenuity. 
 
 It however, to me, became at least a serious annoyance 5 for, 
 whether she feared a rival influence with Sir Simeon, who, in pro- 
 portion to his deference to me, which increased daily, lost some of 
 what he had for her, or whether she began to suspect, what was 
 true, that I was endeavouring to rescue him from the tyranny of 
 her dominion, she became markedly averse to me as a guest, and in 
 no very measured terms sometimes let fall, how odious it was for 
 people, who had no home of their own, to run about the country to 
 other people's houses, meddling with what did not belong to them. 
 44 For my part," said she, 44 1 can't abide it, for I always hated a 
 spy worse than a thief, and that, whatever the colour of his coat." 
 
 I found from this, that I had lost the little place, if ever I had 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 261 
 
 one, which I thought I had possessed in the good lady's good graces. 
 In fact, having more than once found her close at the door of the 
 study, when I had been using all my powers with her master to 
 assert himself, I began to suspect that she was a listener, which, 
 indeed, most housekeepers are, even when they are not so inte- 
 rested as this country Roxalana was 
 
 " To bear no brother near the throne." 
 
 I was not deterred by this from doing what I thought my duty 
 to my friend, but took every occasion that offered to set before him, 
 how easy it would be, with the commonest manliness, to assert his 
 freedom, by getting rid of this artful hussy—for artful he himself 
 began to allow that she was $ and I thought I should have succeeded, 
 when he told me he was quite prepared to pay the penalty of his 
 bond in dismissing her. 
 
 " It would, indeed, be a relief to me," said he, " as I can afford 
 it, not to let a poor creature so attached to me, with all her faults, 
 be cast helpless on the world, which she is ready to abandon for my 
 sake. For, whatever her temper, I am sure of her there.' 1 
 
 I ventured to doubt even this, and though I saw it was unpalat- 
 able, set before him such causes of suspicion of a base conspiracy 
 between her and her brother, to obtain from him the unlucky bond, 
 and brought even her virtuous indignation (heaven forgive me if I 
 was wrong) so much into doubt, that he actually worked himself up 
 into a resolution to communicate his determination to her that 
 instant. He even rang the bell for her with tolerable vigour, de- 
 termined, he said, to carry his purpose into effect immediately. 
 He would not, however, accept my offer to slay by him as his ally 
 in case of need, during so critical a moment, of which I shall be 
 glad if he has not since repented. 
 
 "You shall see," said he, "I have resolution enough, when put 
 to it. I will manage it all myself." 
 
 Delighted with a courage so unlooked for, I retired, and abided the 
 event with not a little interest, for I was heartily desirous of success 
 in a measure I looked upon as one of life and death to my friend. 
 
 The reader will be astonished at the result ; indeed I was as- 
 tonished myself; but such is poor human nature. 
 
 After the parties had been closeted full an hour, during which I 
 walked the garden with some impatience, for I did not like so long 
 an interview, in* returning to the house I met the lady herself, fiery 
 red with agitation, and eyes that had evidently been deluged with 
 tears. But on seeing me she assumed a quietness of demeanour, and, 
 with a sort of sardonic smile, dropped me a low courtesy 5 then, 
 finding her tongue, said with emphasis, 
 
 "Some folks will perhaps be disappointed after all, and had 
 
DE CLIFFORD: 
 
 better have staid at home, if they had one, than seek to break the 
 peace of honest families, to serve their own ends." 
 
 With this she flounced out of the hall, leaving me in wonder, and 
 I own, not a little uneasy both for my friend and myself. His door 
 now creaking upon its hinges, half-opened to let his head out, for 
 his body seemed afraid to follow it, and looking anxiously round 
 the hall, as if to ascertain that nobody was there, he beckoned me 
 in ; and if I foreboded little good from his looks, I certainly gathered 
 none from his account of the interview. 
 
 " O! my friend," said he, "let no one — at least, no one of my 
 temper — boast of resolution till he is tried. I am a coward ; I know 
 it, I own if, I lament it, but I cannot cure it. Yet, poor thing! 
 how could I help being softened by such gentleness! such attach- 
 ment! I opened like a man; but when, instead of encountering a 
 vixen, as I expected, I found a bumble, heart-broken creature, in 
 misery to leave me; when I beheld her tears, and heard her sobs 5 
 when I saw her bosom heaving with distress, and she even fell on 
 her knees at my feet " 
 
 "The devil," said 1 5 "go no farther flesh and blood, as you 
 were going to say, could not resist it. Your bond, I see, is safe, and 
 Mrs. Mary, like all other governors and governesses who have 
 triumphed over mutinous subjects, will be more confirmed in her 
 power than ever. Adieu then, my dear Sir Simeon, I perceive this 
 is now no place for me, and I will release you both from the pain 
 of getting rid of me. The woman is shrewd enough to see who is 
 her enemy, and what he thinks of her. Her agony, I apprehend, 
 did not prevent the mention of my name." 
 
 " Yes 5 she mentioned it," said Sir Simeon, with some agitation. 
 
 "And with not many honourable additions, no doubt." 
 
 "She certainly attributed my projected change to you, but I 
 satisfied her that the resolution was all my own." 
 
 " And you have given it up?" 
 
 " Why not exactly ; but she is to stay a little while longer on trial." 
 
 " I should have thought the fruits of the bond would have made 
 her eager to go." 
 
 " O ! you don't know her 5 she said if she had the vile parchment 
 here, she would put it in the fire: but it was in her brother's keep- 
 ing, and he would never part with it." 
 
 " Or else she would undoubtedly do what she said ?" 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 Here our conversation ended, except that my poor friend en- 
 treated and implored that I would not think of leaving him ; that I 
 was his best and only support against himself; his counsellor, his 
 consoler, his right hand. 
 
 In short, though I felt all the annoyance of living in a hurricane, 
 which I was sure to do with Mrs. Mary, after what had passed, yet 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 he was so earnest and warm, and plainly so sincere in his entreaties, 
 that he got the better of my prudence, and, to serve him — for he 
 had many good qualities— I consented to encounter the most dan- 
 gerous thing in nature, an enraged and revengeful woman. ■ 
 
 I, however, never saw her afterwards 5 for the very next day Sir 
 Simeon, after a great deal of embarrassment of manner, many hums 
 and clearances of his throat, and colouring all over with a shame 
 he could not conceal, took me aside, and told me, if he was not 
 assured of the sincerity of my friendship, as well as what he was 
 pleased to call the generosity of my nature, he would not dare con- 
 fess whal he was about to do-, but he owned that, upon reflection, 
 he found I was right, " as you always are," said he, " and though 
 I cannot sufficiently apologize for asking it, I think it best you 
 should withdraw, at least, for a time. From a conference I have 
 had with poor Mary," added he, "I see she will never be happy 
 while you are in the house 5 yet she offered to leave me herself ra- 
 ther than I should lose you, who, she said, did me so much good. 
 This I refused-, but was it not kind of the good creature? You see 
 you have been mistaken in attributing so much art fo her rittixraeier 
 
 I bowed to this proof of profound penetration in my friend, and 
 prepared immediately for my return to London. 
 
 Three weeks afterwards, the papers informed me that Sir Simeon 
 Saunter was married to Miss Mary Quickly, sister of Mounteney 
 Quickly, Esq., the eminent solicitor of Ryegate. 
 
 Poor fellow ! His happiness, if he had any with her, did not last, 
 for a twelvemonth afterwards he was carried off by a brain fever, 
 bequeathing, by a will made by the eminent solicitor, his brother- 
 in-law, his fortune to his widow, to the exclusion of his heir-at-law, 
 and his library to me ■ the latter, I believe, not without considerable 
 opposition on the part of both the widow and her brother. 
 
 The foregoing sketch, drawn from the life, went fa«r, as I have 
 said, to recover me from the sort of trance of indolence into which 
 I had fallen, and which, had it continued, would, as Folhergill 
 prognosticated, have proved my ruin. 
 
 At this epoch, therefore, I was more obliged to my kind adviser 
 than ever, for it was his leniency and skill combined that alone 
 restored me to the possession of myself. At first I was only amused 
 by the memoirs of Sir Simeon. I laughed and passed on. But by 
 degrees T meditated; and found that, by prompting reflection, 
 memoirs may be made far different from a mere chronicle of facts. 
 Sir Simeon, indeed, from Fothergill's account of him (though 
 offered to me as a mere narrative), became a beacon, a lesson, a 
 hand-writing on the wall ; in fact, a scarecrow 5 and whenever I 
 found indolence or indifference undermining resolution, he glared 
 upon me, and I returned to study. 
 
264 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 Much, however, was also owing to recovered health and spirits, 
 and I in secret boasted to myself that the infliction I had suffered 
 was the last tribute I should pay to the influence of Bertha. 
 
 The romance of the u Lover's Hope" fell, as it deserved, into 
 oblivion, and perhaps no small help to me in the affair arose from 
 the total absence of Granville. That feeder of flame, even when 
 most intent on extinguishing it, returned not to Oxford for many 
 months, and in the interval never wrote to me. 
 
 He had joined a gay parly at Paris, of which the centre, orna- 
 ment, and illustration, as he afterwards told me, was that Lady 
 Hungerford whose bust I had observed in Bertha's garden-room. 
 Here he passed the whole winter. 
 
 If Bertha had forgotten me, she at least had no opportunity of 
 discovering that she herself was remembered. It is true, little re- 
 membrances of her kindness would loo often flit across, so as al- 
 most to unman me $ but the remembrance, also, that this kind- 
 ness was nothing more than good-will, went far to arm me against 
 her; and when I repeated, as I did, at least once a day, the em- 
 phatic words, " Mr. De Clifford, why is this? You must not breathe 
 a syllable in this style; surely I have given you no reason to think 
 I expect it" — all this operated upon me like a goading stimulant, 
 whenever I felt my courage beginning to droop. 
 
 Meantime, I was not ill pleased to think, from Granville's ab- 
 sence, that the family at the Park had not the means of knowing the 
 influence they had so long retained over me. How far I may have 
 indulged myself sometimes in thinking that they might wish this 
 were otherwise, and desire to know at least what was become of 
 me, I will not inquire* 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 - 4 
 
 OF THE FRESH AND GREATER OBJECTS WHICH MY TUTOR SET BEFORE ME, ANI> MY 
 EAGERNESS TO PURSUE THEM. 
 
 As the world were now but to begin. 
 
 Shakspeare — Hamlet . 
 
 Thus, in fact, passed a very long period of my early academical 
 life, varied with little scenes, which have become favourites in my 
 recollections. My progress to recovery was not only owing to my 
 dedication of myself to letters, but the recovery advancing made 
 my progress in letters still greater. In this, Fothergill never failed 
 me, and opened, as I grew ripe for it, much wider sources of in- 
 formation than was confined to what is called learning. For a man 
 who was to live in the world, which he always bade me recollect I 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 265 
 
 was to do, there were two sciences, he said, worth all the rest — 
 Modern History and Modern Manners — by which last he meant (he 
 morals of men. 
 
 It was surprising how much a mere Cumberland boor (as he with 
 some affectation called himself) knew of the first of these. Of the 
 last, I have given many specimens. In the first, however, he had 
 profited by his intimacy with Lord Castleton, who, highly gifted, 
 and living himself on a sea of politics, was necessarily devoted to, 
 and well understood, those subjects ; and what he knew he had not 
 failed to communicate to Fothergill, and Fothergill to me. 
 
 " Who knows," said my tutor, "but if you accomplish yourself 
 in this interesting knowledge, you may one day be acquainted with 
 this excellent and able nobleman, and bring it more to profit in the 
 world than I did." 
 
 The thought shuck instantaneously and deeply into my mind, 
 and, without having any definite ideas upon it, it sharpened my in- 
 dustry, so that I acquired a very decent modicum of modern me- 
 moirs, politics, and diplomacy. 
 
 But even superior to this, in FolherghTs mind, was the inex- 
 haustible, the never-ending, still beginning subject of human na- 
 ture. "This, however," he said, "you can never acquire with 
 closed doors. 1 ' 
 
 He was here indeed, or would have been, a favourite disciple of 
 Johnson, and would have walked Fleet-street and the Strand with as 
 much success as the sage. In pursuance of this, he laid before me 
 a plan for the long vacations (especially as my cure of Bertha ad- 
 vanced) which was charming to my fancy. 
 
 "Go," said he, "pay your duty to your father and mother; 
 shew and gladden them with your improvements ; but do not stay 
 (oo long. 4 Home-keeping youths have ever homely wits. 1 See the 
 world in all the shapes of it you can master. You cannot do it en 
 grand seigneur i you cannot afford a post-chaise 5 and if you could, 
 it would be tbe readiest way to defeat your object. Perhaps even a 
 horse might be objectionable. A philosopher on foot (or we will 
 ennoble him with the name of a peripatetic) finds out most of life. 
 For this purpose, indeed, a stage-coach is not despicable, but a pri- 
 vate carriage will tell you nothing. A pedestrian expedition, how- 
 ever, is the thing. This I should have found out of myself (for I 
 have often practised it) even without the glowing panegyric upon it 
 by Rousseau, which, with a view to my proposal, I have looked 
 out for you." 
 
 So saying, he put the volume into my hands, and I read, with 
 much interest, the following passages : — 
 
 " Jamais je n'ai tant pense, tant exisle, tanl vecu, tant ete rnoi, 
 sij'oseainsi dire, que dans ces voyages que j'ai faits soul et a pied. 
 La marche a quelque chose qui anirne mes idees 5 je ne puis presque 
 
266 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 penser quand je resteen place; il faut que mon corps soil en branle 
 pour y mettre mon esprit. La vue de la campagne, la succession 
 des aspects agreables, le grand air, le grand appetit, la bonne sanle 
 que je gagne en marchanl 5 la liberte du cabaret, Veloignement 
 de tout ce qui me fait sentir ma dependance, de tout ce qui me 
 rappelle a ma situation, lout cela degage mon ame, me donne une 
 plus grande audace de penser, me jelle en quelque sorte dans Tim- 
 mensite des 6tres, pour les combiner, les choisir, meles approprier 
 sans gSne et sans crainte 5 je dispose en maitre de la nature en- 
 Here j mon coeur errant d'objet en objet, s'unit, s'identifie a ceux 
 qui le flattent, s'entoure d'imagcs charmantes, s'enivre de senti- 
 ments delicieux. Si pour les fixer je m'amuse a les decrire en moi~ 
 m6me, quelle vigueur de pinceau, quelle fraicheur decoloris, quelle 
 energie d'expression je leur donne ! " 
 
 I was so warmed with this description, thai it was like a match to 
 a train, and I was impatient to begin the tour. 
 
 " I thought it would excite you, as it did me at your age,"; said 
 Fothergill. " But recollect all you have to expect and encounter. 
 At the same lime 5 though there may be apparent difficulties (chiefly 
 from false pride), common sense, and that spice of romance which 
 you have in your composition, will bring you through." 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 I LEARN HOW TO TAKE A WALK.— PICTURE OF A CONTEMPLATIVE MAN 
 AND PRACTICAL OBSERVER. 
 
 Bul what said Jaques? 
 Did he not moralize this spectacle? 
 Oh .' yes ; into a thousand similes. 
 
 Shakspeare.— As You Like It. 
 
 Under such a master, no wonder if my own similar disposition 
 to observe, and to reason upon what he called the moral pheno- 
 mena of our species, as well as upon things of a higher character, 
 was cultivated and improved. In fact, I never knew a man so formed 
 to conduct a youthful mind in all that was most precious to its wel- 
 fare, whether worldly or religious. He drew lessons from every 
 thing he saw or heard, of the most common, as well as of the rarest 
 occurrence. In short, the world was his study, and all things that 
 filled it, whether animate or inanimate, material or spiritual, were 
 made subservient to this great end 5 and this disposition he did his 
 utmost to encourage and cherish in me. 
 
 Such a preceptor was of inestimable value to me, and his mode 
 of conveying instruction by familiar colloquy was more lastingly 
 
ft 
 
 OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 267 
 
 impressive, as well as more pleasant, from its very familiarity, than 
 a formal lecture ex cathedra. The lecture might be forgotten 5 
 the friendly conversation never. 
 
 Upon this principle, and inculcating a habit of keen observation 
 as the best road to Knowledge, he would ask frequently, at the close 
 of the day, what I had been doing? what I had seen, and what re- 
 marked, particularly as to men's motives of action — whether by 
 examining my own, or those of others? 
 
 When I have been surprised at this, and at being told I could 
 know other men's motives by my own, he has cut me short by ask- 
 ing if I had never heard the searching phrase, 44 You judge of others 
 by yourself." For he held, that a man well acquainted with his own 
 heart' might, from its workings alone (nay, its very weaknesses), 
 get a fair acquaintance with that of another. 
 
 44 Your own heart,'' he would say, 44 is so far like that of others, 
 as to have passions and springs common to the rest of your kind. 
 Whatever, therefore, is found there, maybe found elsewhere \ and 
 though others may have what you have not, yet at least what you 
 have must belong to human nature at large, though perhaps not to 
 every individual who composes it." 
 
 Observing that I had grown more and more fond of walking with- 
 out companions, except my own thoughts, he said, 44 If this proceed 
 from your still cherishing what you ought to drive from your me- 
 mory, you are perverse as well as imprudent." 
 
 When I assured him it arose chiefly from my fondness for walk- 
 ing unrestrained by company, he once asked me, 44 And do you 
 know how to take a walk?" 
 
 I thought this an odd question, and told him so ; when he replied, 
 that he agreed with a foreign philosophical writer, who said, few 
 men knew how to do this. To prove it, he asked me what I exa- 
 mined in my walks ? 
 
 44 Bo you inspect men and things ? " asked he ; 44 animate and in- 
 animate ? And does the inspection lead you to principles ? to causes 
 and effects? and, above all, to trace them to the great First Cause of 
 all? In short, does the earth take you to heaven? Without this, you 
 do not know how to lake a walk." 
 
 Seeing me rather ponder upon this, and expressing still more 
 wonder, he one day said — u If you do not know how to gather know- 
 ledge from the smallest object or occurrence in the ever varying 
 scene that opens upon you when abroad, you might as well never 
 stir from home, particularly if you have company, who may in- 
 struct if they do not amuse you. But a contemplative man will ga- 
 ther instruction and pleasure (the pleasure of adding to his stores) 
 from every thing he sees or hears. If his walk be in the country, 
 not a tree, or leaf, or tuft of grass (coursed by the fairies), not a 
 sound of a bird—particularly of the stock-dove, or thrush, most of 
 
268 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ' 
 
 all, of the nightingale — but whispers pleasure to his heart. The 
 bleat of the lamb 5 the lowing of herds ; the murmurs of waterfalls 5 
 the rising or setting sun 5 the soft and soothing twilight; — all these 
 enter his soul, fill him with rapture almost unaccountable to him- 
 self, till he raises his thoughts to Him who created all— diffuses all 
 — and gives us power to value all, as a far more real source of hap- 
 piness than what the children of the world toil after in vain. For is 
 it not in vain, when, even if obtained, the things sought are, in 
 many instances, nothing but gewgaws, often deemed worthless by 
 those who have pursued them, and thrown away, as gewgaws of 
 spoilt children generally are? Depend upon it, whatever the pursuit 
 or occupation, however gorgeous the object, or flattering the ambi- 
 tion, nothing is really valuable where the mind enters not." 
 
 " But if I merely walk the streets ? " said I. 
 
 "There is more mind there," answered he, "than anywhere 
 else. They are full of intellectual food. You see there all the va- 
 rieties of life, in all their characters, their good or bad fortune — 
 business, amusements, actions ; the noble, the generous, the self- 
 ish, the trifling, the vicious — all are here depicted, in interesting 
 and sparkling colours, in the countenance, gait, and movement of 
 every man you meet. The ardour of ambition about to be crowned ; 
 the gloom and mortification of ambition disappointed 5 the specula- 
 tions of avarice; the torture of suspicion ; the stratagems of hypo- 
 crisy ; the excitement of hope ; the uncertainties, the pleasures, the 
 miseries of love ! These, and all the other ten thousand diversities 
 of our wayward nature, are presented, as in a glass, to him who 
 knows how to take a walk. Was not my author right, then, in 
 saying that few had that knowledge ? " 
 
 I willingly deferred to all this, which only excited me more and more 
 to put in execution the plan for the pedestrian expedition he had pro- 
 posed, on which I was now impatient to set out, and named the 
 day when I would first go home to communicate with my family. 
 
 "A parting observation," said he, "before you go. Recollect 
 you will, according to this scheme, have little to do with the upper 
 ranks and in what you may call this abasement, you must count 
 upon some mortifications. These you must laugh at, or give up 
 the undertaking. At any rate, you have only to imagine yourself 
 (indeed it will be only true, and a great deal more romantic, and 
 therefore more to your taste ) a gentleman in disguise. Only recol- 
 lect that, however you travel, every little incident that occurs may, 
 with proper powers of mind, be turned to account." 
 
 I quite fell in with these suggeslions, and was almost as eager 
 for my first sally as Don Quixote. 
 
 I went home to Bardolfe to announce my intention, and my father 
 did not oppose it, especially when he heard it was by Fothergiii's 
 recommendation. My brothers, indeed, thought it a queer thing 
 
OR , THE CONSTANT M AN. 
 
 260 
 
 for " I' young doctor to set off after a Willy-with-a-wisp," as they 
 called it, with no object of business, and nothing to see but the 
 same creatures as our own market town supplied nearer home. 
 But as I could afford to pay my way, they agreed I had a right to 
 please myself. 
 
 So, after a few days' visit to my family at the commencement of 
 the long vacation, I returned to Oxford to equip myself for my expe- 
 dition, which I meant to direct southward through (he neighbour- 
 ing counties. Here my adventures furnish very different scenes from 
 those I have reported, and some of them, as will be seen, led to most 
 important changes in my prospects, as well as my ultimate fate. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 I START ON A TOUR OF OBSERVATION. — THE FEELINGS OF A YOUTH ABOUT TO VIEW 
 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 This morning, like the spirit of a youth 
 That means to be of note, begins by times. 
 
 Shakspeare.— .4«fony and Cleopatra. 
 
 It was not five o'clock in the morning, in the first week in Au- 
 gust, when I started from my cell in the old quadrangle of the 
 venerable Maudlin, to commence my novel excursion. In my way, 
 passing Queen's, I beheld my old friend the porter already opening 
 his gates, and preparing to wash them, for he was proud of, and 
 loved them seemingly with a lover's fondness. Hence Set none of 
 us suppose that there are no interests ( and exciting ones too ) ex- 
 cept among great ones. The porter of Queen's was as eagerly 
 occupied in furbishing up his gates, as the duchess of Q. in clean- 
 ing her diamonds. Perhaps his pride in them was the least selfish, 
 and therefore the more respectable of the two. 
 
 This earliest of my academical friends had always treated me with 
 great respect, which was not a little increased by my election to 
 Maudlin, a demy of which he considered as the high road to a fel- 
 lowship, the acme, in his eyes ( with the sole exception of the head 
 of a house ), of all earthly dignity. 
 
 What was my old friend's wonder, when he saw the equipments 
 of my pedestrian journey — a small knapsack strapt to my shoulders, 
 a short coat with many pockets, and, for convenience in walking, 
 denuded of skirts. Trowsecs, half-gaiters, and thick shoes (which, 
 in those days of buckskin breeches, cordovan boots and pumps, 
 were by no means condescended to by the Oxford dandies, among 
 whom, by the porter at least, I had been reckoned), completed 
 my appearance. Thus equipped, with about thirty guineas in my 
 
270 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 pocket, and staff in hand, like an old patriarch (I mean in regard 
 to the staff, not the guineas), I was proceeding on my way. 
 
 The janitor, who knew nothing of romance, or that I was so 
 well furnished, beheld me with consternation 5 and when he learned 
 that I was quitting Oxford for the vacation, I saw he suspected me 
 of poverty, nor could my assurances that I walked for pleasure un- 
 deceive him. I am afraid, notwithstanding my own romance, I was 
 fool enough to be annoyed at this, and glad not only that the various 
 colleges had been emptied of their inhabitants by the vacation, but 
 that the few who remained were wrapt in sleep. I had, in fact, at 
 first thought of going in a gig, in order not to disparage the demy 
 of Maudlin by the appearance of a tramper. But I grew ashamed 
 of the feeling, and rallied like a brave fellow, resolved to defy pre- 
 judice 5 though even the honest porter, I thought, touched his hat 
 less reverently than usual 5 but such is the world ! 
 
 Be that as it will, I never felt in better spirits than when I set 
 out. The prospect before me was one of hope, of adventure ; and 
 hope, as Lord Bacon says, is a good breakfast though a bad supper ; 
 but be it noted, I was then twenty years old, and thought only of 
 breakfast. FotherghTs prognostics, too, in regard to Lord Castleton, 
 still tingled in my ears; and meanwhile-, to use his words, it was 
 holiday time, and I was to see a little of the world with my own 
 eyes, instead of those of the book-men. What could be more tak- 
 ing to a sanguine youth, who thought that world all his own? 
 
 The weather, too (no small ingredient in a scheme of happiness), 
 was. opportunely propitious; nay, it seemed bespoke. It had rained 
 in the night, not in torrents, that sweep and Jash the plains, but 
 in mild and gentle showers, just sufficient to cool the earth, and by 
 their genial moisture to wake every thing into freshness. Sweet 
 indeed was this breath of morn 5 for the meadows were full of but- 
 ter-cups, the grass emitted perfume, the hedges and their wild- 
 flowers breathed fragrance, and the birds sang paeans. Could a 
 young collegian fail to think of his Virgil ? 
 
 " Lucifero primo cum sidere frigida rura 
 Carpamus, dum mane novum, dum gramina canent, 
 Et ros in tenera pecori gratissimus herba est '. " 
 
 I thought, too, of something almost still more beautiful, from its 
 simplicity : 
 
 "Come, my beioved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the 
 villages; let us go up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine 
 flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud 
 forth 8 . " 
 
 ! Before the sun when Hesperus appears, 
 First let them sip from herbs the pearly tears 
 Of morning dews, then let them break their fast, 
 On greensward ground, u cool and grateful taste. 
 
 * Canticle 7, 12. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 271 
 
 I doubt if the flue people of the world, who live upon excitement, 
 and sicken at the very name of quiet, will agree with me 5 but set- 
 ting its concomitant sentiment aside, I know not a sensual pleasure 
 equal to the vivifying return of life to fields and gardens after 
 showers. Every plant seems restored, every tree looks grateful, as 
 if it had a soul, and thought, and felt, and thanked the giver. 
 
 Could the real soul of man not respond to this, or not confess the 
 benign influence of that Deity who is present, as it were, within 
 him, on contemplating such a scene? 
 
 With this feeling, bursting into soliloquy, I exclaimed, 
 
 ' 'The morning breathes, and cometh on with new gladness. 
 Arise, fair morning, and bring on the day, that every living thing 
 may wake and praise the Lord." 
 
 The sentiment recalled a similar one, only dressed in more 
 poetry, which ihose who will not laugh at ihe above apostrophe 
 may perhaps forgive me if I transcribe. 
 
 "Only the wakeful lark 1 had left her nest; and was mounted 
 on high to salute the opening day. Elevated in air, she seamed to 
 call the husbandman to his toil, and all her fellow-songsters to their 
 notes. 'Earliest of birds,' said I, 'companion of Ihe dawn, may 
 I always rise at thy voice ! Rise to offer the matin song, and adore 
 that Being who maketh the outgoings of the morning and evening 
 to praise him. 1 How charming to rove abroad at this sweet hour of 
 prime! To enjoy the calm of nature ; to tread the dewy lawns, and 
 taste the unrifled freshness of the air ! " 
 
 Many perhaps will think this an ebullition of Rousseau. It is at 
 least very like him. Let them not laugh when I tell them it belongs 
 to a country parson, as opposed to Rousseau as light to darkness 5 
 save that both were men of genius, and Hervey as great an admirer 
 of nature, with a hundred times his virtue, as Rousseau himself. 
 
 Well, my tour was commenced, and I may say, perhaps without 
 self-flattery, that I was not the last man in the world to be sent upon 
 such an expedition. My health was restored, and I felt stronger than 
 I had been in earlier parts of my life. My heart, too, though I had 
 not drunk too copiously of Lethe, was tolerably at rest. Without at 
 all extinguishing that romance, without which no pleasure of the 
 imagination (which a tour always is) can hold for a day, 1 really 
 longed to behold more of the moral as well as natural world. Perhaps 
 I hoped in lime to imitate Fothergill in this. 1 certainly was no! 
 ashamed of the hope. 
 
 But, exclusive of this, I had notions of mental pleasure to be 
 drawn from a tour, or journey, which, if not, peculiar to myself, 
 were certainly not belonging to every traveller. I was not like a 
 certain great earl, notorious for his causticity, who made the tour 
 
 The light-enamoured bird. 
 
272 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 of Europe in his carriage without once allowing its back to be 
 touched by his % 
 
 My brothers' notion of my hunting a Willy-with-a-wisp was not 
 absolutely incorrect ; for, with liberty thus all before me, I felt any 
 thing but disposed to confine myself to the beaten track. Once the 
 silly shame of my knapsack conquered, independence seemed 
 inclosed in it with my shirts and stockings, for I had not any thing 
 else, not even the black silk breeches of Sterne, which stood him in 
 such stead with the Piedmontese lady, in his journey over Mount 
 Taurira 3 . 
 
 Accordingly, I resolved that no consideration, either of time or 
 place, should prevent the indulgence of any object, or even any 
 whim I might propose to myself, and that I would follow my fancy 
 wherever it led me. One pleasure indeed of a journey (I should say 
 its greatest) is, to give the fullest play to the imagination. For with 
 that, every fine prospect — every gentleman's seat, with its avenue 
 or park — and, iu the same manner, every snug box, farm, or 
 hermitage, becomes our own. A garden of flowers, or bees, brings 
 Virgil before us ; a flock of goats among rocks, Horace. 
 
 But if a castle appear in the distance, with its donjon keep, its 
 towers, and labelled windows ; its mullions and corbels 5 Ke nil- 
 worth or Ashby, Plessis les Tours or Inverary, rise to one's view : 
 what chivalry, what passages of arms does not that draw forth ! At 
 the same time, what oubliettes and legends of bygone tyrannies are 
 not conjured up, making us hug ourselves that these last exist now 
 only in story, and that a peaceable, way-faring pilgrim, like my- 
 self, may walk by, without danger of beiug run up in a noose, for 
 not doing as Maeallum More bids us. 
 
 On these occasions, the eye is not the only faculty set to work in 
 the sentimental traveller. In passing a dwelling, whether a man- 
 sion or farm, or rustic vicarage, we plan the lives and occupations 
 of all their inhabitants, or our own, should we ever come to possess 
 such spots. 
 
 No end to chateaux en Espagne, and the more the sun shines, 
 the more does our fancy. If we roam through a wood, be sure 'lis 
 the forest of Ardennes 5 and Orlando and Rosalind flit before our 
 eyes. 
 
 A circle on the greensward is straightway thronged with fairies : 
 and a glade of soft turf, skreened with trees, is peopled by the 
 figures of Watleaux. We see his groupes of court ladies, with their 
 well-dressed partners, and flutes and guitars. We then moralize 
 upon elegant pleasures, and think the business of the world (we 
 are indeed flying from it) nothing but useless care. 
 
 This, with health, and hope, and money (ever so little, if it pay 
 
 1 James, sixth Earl of Abercorn. 
 
 2 Seethe last and most amusing chapter of the " Senlimentai Journey. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 273 
 
 our way), produce the highest good-humour— itself the highest 
 happiness. 
 
 All this is indeed illusion. Yet if we really tread on classic ground 
 (as I did in a very few days after my starling), at Binfield % Cooper's 
 Hill 2 , and Chertsey 3 , and above all, when, some time afterwards, I 
 visited Stratford-upon-Avon, what a tumult of interest presses upon 
 the brain ! 
 
 " We seem through consecrated walks to rove ; 
 We hear soft music die along the grove j 
 Led by the sound, we roam from shade to shade, 
 By godlike poets venerable made." 
 
 " Here, his first lays majestic Denham sung ; 
 There, the last numbers flow'd from Cowley's tongue." 
 
 Have I said enough to recommend my tour? 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 OF THE STRANGE PERSONAGE I MET ON MY TRAVELS. — THE STRANGE OPINIONS HELD 
 BY HIM ON THE MISCHIEFS BELONGING TO SOCIETY, AND HIS STRANGE PLAN FOR 
 REMEDYING THEM. 
 
 I pry'thee, sweet wag, shall there be a gallows standing in England 
 when thou art king ?— Shakspeare.— 1 Henry IV. < 
 
 The observation of Fothergill when he proposed this pleasant 
 undertaking to me, that " every little incident that occurred might, 
 if I pleased, be turned to account," was by no means forgotten 
 from the moment I left Oxford. To be sure, beyond what I might 
 have described, there was little of note, the first two days, except, 
 that I never so fully felt the truth of the picture, that the man who , 
 engages in this sort of excursion, if of a certain cast of mind, border- 
 ing on the sentimental, and cheerful witha), 
 
 ** From each thing met conceives delight." 
 
 The villages and farms of England are, indeed, proverbial for 
 the comfort they exhibit, and therefore, for the pleasure they com- 
 municate to any traveller who has a spark of benevolence in him, 
 — without which he had better not travel 4 at all^Thus, wherever I 
 advanced I felt at home, but particularly when I had penetrated 
 into the rich, rural, and well-cullivaled county of Berks. 
 * I did this at last, after loitering pleasingly (so that I was loth to 
 quit them) along the sides of the lovely Thames, flowing through 
 
 1 Where Pope sang his earliest lays. 
 
 2 Denham's favourite haunt. 
 
 3 Cowley's last retreat, 
 
274 
 
 DE CLIFFORD § 
 
 meadows illumined by the sun, which turned every thing into green 
 and gold. 
 
 I met, of course, a variety of travellers of various degrees, who 
 shewed me different marks of respect, according to their different 
 notions of themselves and of me. All of them seemed to cast an eye 
 of criticism on my knapsack. Those in carriages, or horsemen of an 
 upper rank, were not uncivil, but never looked twice. While the 
 bags-men, or gentlemen travellers, as they are called, seemed hor- 
 rified lo look once. For as soon as they perceived my knapsack, 
 like IheLevite, after looking, they passed on the other side. It was 
 only pedestrians like myself who seemed sometimes, though not 
 always, glad to join company, on terms of equality ; a liberty 
 which, being one of themselves, I could not reasonably refuse. 
 
 What at first appeared remarkable was, that from my knapsack, 
 black neckcloth, and light trowsers (black neckcloths not being 
 worn then by the many), I was generally taken for a soldier. Some 
 thought I was passing home on furlough, some that I was a deserter. 
 
 This last idea was entertained by a fellow-traveller who joined 
 me on the third day, on the road between Wallingford and Reading. 
 He was a hale, dark, loud man, strong built, and well fed and clo- 
 thed, with shaggy black brows, almost closing up eyes which, 
 when seen, had a most sinister expression. In short, like Smollett's 
 Cadwallader, " He squinted with a most horrid obliquity of vision." 
 
 This personage joined me just as I was in the happy mood occa- 
 sioned by passing through a succession of well-cultivated fields, 
 and clean cottages, all amidst small but well-kept plots of garden 
 ground, prolific in culinary herbs and flowers, exhibiting the pro- 
 mise of future plenty and innocent amusement. I was, therefore, 
 little prepared for the rencontre that took place. After the usual 
 salutations, and he had surveyed me very critically with a good deal 
 of suspicion, 
 
 "A gentleman soldier, I suppose," said he, inquiringly. "Pray, 
 what regiment ?" 
 
 " You are wrong," replied I, shortly, for I did not like his ill- 
 omened countenance, and walked quickly on. 
 
 41 You need not be afraid of me," continued he. " I am no kid- 
 napper, and would rather help an honest deserter to flee from sla- 
 very, than peach him, though to get the reward." 
 
 44 You are wrong again," said I. " I have told you I am not a 
 soldier and if I were, I would not be a deserter." 
 
 44 More fool you," he answered, " if in your power to escape 
 from those rascally tyrants whom we pay only for keeping honest 
 men from their own." 
 
 I liked my sententious companion so little, that at first I wished 
 lo shake him off, and walked quick or slow, as I thought would 
 best serve that purpose ; but he foiled me by always altering his 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 275 
 
 own pace accordingly, and at length observed with sorne roughness, 
 
 44 You seem a dry one, young fellow, though I have told you, 
 you need not be afraid of me; for I would not, I tell you, peach, 
 even if you had robbed your master, or were running away from 
 your own father. Masters and fathers are but rum commodities, 
 and will never allow the world to be free. 11 
 
 44 I don't agree with you," replied I ; but struck somehow with 
 what seemed so unusual in the man's ideas, I renounced my wish 
 to get rid of him, and encouraged him to develop himself still 
 more, by entering into conversation with him. When, continuing 
 his notion of my military capacity, he asked if I had come from 
 Windsor barracks, I said, no 9 from Oxford. " But pray," conti- 
 nued I, 44 as you have expressed some curiosity about me, may I 
 ask who you are yourself?" 
 
 "I am one of the few," returned he, sternly, "who dare to 
 think for themselves, hold that the world has all got wrong, and 
 that it will never be to rights till' " 
 
 "Till what?" 
 
 44 Till every thing is reversed that we see about us; till there be 
 no kings or queens ; nor even magistrates ; and of course no gibbets 
 to hang men upon merely for attempting to get their own." 
 
 " Attempting to get their own," cried I ; 44 is that the way you 
 designate robbery? for that, I suppose, is what you mean." 
 
 44 Aye ! there it is," said he. 4 4 None of you smooth-faced gentle- 
 men, who, though forced to walk on foot while others ride in their 
 carriages, but toady those real robbers of the poor, by calling that 
 robbery which is only justice. If you ever heard of the laws of na- 
 ture, you must know that the first of them is equality as to property , 
 and every thing else. Nay, a community of goods was originally 
 the law of Christianity ; but soon the rascally priests abolished it 5 
 after which men grew rich by robbing others of their share. Yet if 
 one of the robbed attempt to recover part of his property, he is 
 himself called robber, and hanged like a dog, or shot like a car- 
 rion crow. Out upon such a world ! " \ 
 
 He said this with such emphasis, that though I believed him 
 mad, I thought him at least sincere. He, however, went on : — 
 
 44 Of course, too, you soldiers (for I still believe you to be one) 
 should all be put down 5 fathers, instead of being tyrants over their 
 children till twenty-one, should have no authority after they are 
 fifteen •, for I would follow the laws of nature in every thing, and 
 they shew, that boys are then marriageable, and marriage (if it be 
 allowed at all) at least shews the lime for emancipaiion." 
 
 44 Allowed at all!" 
 
 u Yes. For where can we find nature speak so well as in the 
 brutes, who in most things far excel us ? There is at least no wicked- 
 ness among them, and there are no marriages among them 5 and 
 
276 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 children, as soon as Ihey can provide for themselves, leave their 
 fathers and mothers, and never know them again. Is not this un- 
 answerable?" 
 
 " I quite agree with you, 1 ' said I, much amused, and wishing 
 now to draw him out. 
 
 " 1 don't believe you," replied he, " for just now you would not 
 allow that masters and fathers were rum commodities 5 and if it was 
 not for your knapsack and black slock, as you say you come from 
 Oxford, I should take you for one of those black-gowned hypocrites, 
 who, under pretence of godliness, humbug people out of their 
 rights. Was there ever such a barefaced pillage as tithes? Yet, 
 forsooth, it is all for our good, to enable them to pray for and in- 
 struct us ; as if we could not pray for and instruct ourselves ! With 
 my good will, Oxford and Cambridge, and all such harbours for 
 designing priests, should be burnt down ; and if the priests along 
 with them, it would not be amiss, for they have been the cause of 
 all the miseries of the world, from Adam. Why, the very grammar 
 paints them to the life : — ' Bos, fur, sus, atque sacerdos.' " 
 
 "I thought," said I, " that line had only been to denote the 
 genders of the nouns mentioned, not the character of sacerdos." 
 
 " So those who only skim the surface think," returned he, con- 
 temptuously. u They see not that even Lily in this intended 
 (though he veiled it, from fear of the tyrant law) to depict the clergy 
 in their proper colours. I am, however, translating some of these 
 rules, in a sort of verse, for the instruction of the people, and if 
 you buy my book when it is published (it is cheap, in order to be 
 more widely distributed), you will find the English run thus : — 
 
 4 Bos— -when among his neighbours' wives ; 
 Fur— when gathering his tithes ; 
 Sus — 'When he swills at parish feast ; 
 Sacerdos -to complete the priest.'" 
 
 "There can be no doubt of all this," said I, beginning, how- 
 ever, to wish to get rid of my new preceptor \ when, looking at me 
 with stricter scrutiny, he observed, 
 
 " If you are sincere, perhaps you will give me a proof of it when 
 we arrive at Reading — to which I suppose you are going — by en- 
 rolling your name in a society which I have instituted there, and 
 at which I am to lecture this evening. The disciples are already 
 numerous; you will have to pay twenty shillings subscription to 
 cover expenses, and what you please to me, as lecturer and in- 
 structor in the real rights of man." 
 
 " You are a public lecturer, then ? " 
 
 " Yes; for I look upon myself as born to renovate society, and 
 lighten the darkness even of Europe, but of England in particular ; 
 for, from want of mere moral courage, the wisest and best spirits in 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 277 
 
 it are conteni to be oppressed by fools and cowards. Such are the 
 monopolizers of wealth and power. Bui I am setting up, and am 
 daily more and more successful, a new code of laws, which will 
 extinguish all abuses whatever, being founded on the eternal rights 
 of nature : one of which is, to have all things in common." 
 
 " Wives and all?" asked I, affecting great simplicity. 
 
 " We have not yet got to that pass," returned he, "from the 
 inveterate prejudices that oppose us ; but after a few more lectures 
 I shall not despair of it. This evening, however, is set aside for 
 another part of the subject, which will be worth hearing should 
 you attend." 
 
 "Pray what?" 
 
 " Why, you may have heard (or, as you are not an inhabitant 
 of Reading, perhaps you have not heard) that a poor man was shot 
 two nights ago, in the act of what was called breaking into the 
 mayor's house j shot by the mayor himself ! " 
 
 " And was he not breaking in?" asked I. 
 
 "Why yes; if unbarring a window, merely to get what he had 
 a right to, is breaking in." 
 
 "With what intent?" 
 
 " Aye ; that is the true question. The poor man was starving \ 
 the mayor lived in abundance. The man had a right to his share of 
 the fruits of the earth 5 the mayor had too many of them. This, 
 however, the distressed man did not well know, till he had at- 
 tended my lectures, and convinced himself that he had a right to 
 deliver himself by his own act from the injustice of the laws of 
 properly. He therefore only wished to take from the monopolist 
 what might bring them more to the equality intended by nature. 
 To do this, he certainly tried to get into the house in the middle of 
 the night, and was savagely shot in the attempt. I am to lecture 
 upon it this evening, and shall prove it a cruel and bloody murder." 
 
 "I have no doubt of it," I answered; "but pray, in proving 
 this from the law of nature, may you not run a little risk from the 
 law of the land? May not this very mayor think himself libelled, to 
 say nothing of the community ?" 
 
 " The mayor! the community V cried he 5 "what can they do? 
 Though you come from Oxford, you seem not to know that the 
 schoolmaster is abroad 5 and the march of intellect is such, that they 
 dare not interfere. If the mayor was to do so, he would be shot to- 
 morrow. But I hear the Wallingford coach behind us, on which I 
 have an outside place to Reading, having, in fact, come from Wall- 
 ingford, and was only walking till it should come up. Farewell. I 
 trust I shall see you in the evening, and that what you will hear 
 may quicken your ideas. Ask for Dr. Firebrass's lecture-room. 
 Anybody will shew it you." 
 
278 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 "Dr. Firebrass ! You have then graduated at a university. May 
 I ask if it was at Oxford ?" 
 " God forbid!" 
 "Cambridge, perhaps?" 
 
 " God forbid! But I am Dr. Firebrass, nevertheless." 
 
 At these words the coach coming up, to my relief I own, this 
 institutor of a new code of laws, which was to supersede all the old 
 ones, and renovate Europe, took his leave, and was soon out of sight. 
 
 CFIAPTER XLIIX. 
 
 OF ANOTHER STRANGER WHO JOINED ME ON HIS ROAD, VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE 
 LAST; AND OF THE CONVERSATION WE HAD TOGETHER ON THE MISTAKES ABOUT 
 HAPPINESS. 
 
 An I had been a man of any occupation. 
 Shakspeare .—Julius Ccesar. 
 
 For a mile or two I could not forget my strange acquaintance, 
 and was debating with myself whether or not I should seek him out 
 at Reading, and hear his lecture. For I thought it would at least 
 be amusing, if not instructive, in shewing to what extravagance a 
 hotbrain may push a wicked heart. My thoughts, however, were 
 diverted by being overtaken by another pedestrian, whose quick 
 step did not at all suit my lounging disposition, whether of mind 
 or body. 
 
 But my new companion, on corning up, slackened his pace 
 (indeed it was just at the beginning of a hill), and taking off his hat 
 to wipe his forehead, remarked that it was fine weather for walking. 
 I assented, but said nothing more, which did not satisfy my new 
 friend, who did not disdain to talk to a stranger even of my doubt- 
 ful appearance. This, I soon found, arose from a good-natured 
 heartiness of disposition, with perhaps an irrepressible cacoethes 
 loquendi — in plain English, a love of gossipping. 
 
 He seemed to revel in the fine weather, which he informed me 
 was the best gift of heaven, and better than a thousand a year. To 
 this I agreed, especially when he added, that he always got moped 
 and blue-deviled unless he had somebody to talk to, and walked ten 
 miles a day. 
 
 " It is just that distance," said he, " from my house to Walling- 
 ford and back. This I perform every day when it does not rain ; 
 often when it does ; and am all the better for it." 
 
 "No doubt," said I, looking at his rubicund complexion, and 
 limbs active and vigorous ( though his face shewed marks of age, 
 and his head was grey) 5 u no doubt it contributes to bodily health." 
 
 "Aye," returned he, " and still more to health of mind." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 2/9 
 
 The remark seemed more than common-place, and made me 
 survey my fellow-traveller a little more particularly, and I found at 
 least nothing repulsive in him. He might be about fifty, and had 
 the air and look of a man comfortable within himself : an open, 
 composed, and confiding countenance, the reverse of the cloudy 
 Firebrass ; in short, bonhommie >, mixed with intelligence. What 
 perhaps recommended him more, he noticed my knapsack without 
 superciliousness. On the contrary, he observed how independent it 
 must always make a man in his journeys 5 "the truest way," said 
 he, " of enjoying liberty." 
 
 This pleased me, and I relaxed from my English sullenness, dis- 
 posed to a chat which I thought might prove more agreeable, though 
 perhaps not so striking, as the last I had had. I replied, therefore, 
 very frankly to the hints, rather than direct questions, which he 
 made as we wound up the hill together, proceeding in fact, from the 
 right which all fellow-travellers on a road seem legitimately to haye, 
 to inquire into one another's professions, and the immediate objects 
 which have brought them together. When I had, therefore, ans- 
 wered his question as to whence I came, and mentioned Oxford, I 
 thought there was no harm in satisfying another, as to the college I 
 belonged to, and also in explaining that I travelled on foot, for 
 pleasure, in order the better to indulge my fancy as to the face of 
 the country, or the little adventures which might arise in the course 
 of my progress. 
 
 "Nothing more pleasant," said he 5 "and I should think an ex- 
 cellent preservative against the spleen. For while you can always 
 recruit yourself when tired with too much walking, you are not 
 exposed to the misfortune of being tired with too much rest." 
 
 I thought this an odd remark, and told him so. 
 
 "It may seem such," he observed, "but I assure you it is 
 founded in experience 5 for hence my daily journey to Wallingford 
 and back." 
 
 "'I suppose," said I, " you may have business there?" 
 
 " Not in the least," he answered • " my business is only to read 
 the newspapers at the Bear, and get my letters, if I have any, from 
 the post." 
 
 I found afterwards he was a sort of moral philosopher, without 
 knowing it; like the Ofellus of Horace, " abnormis sapiens" 
 made so by a study of himself. For he gave this account of his 
 former and present habits. 
 
 " I was bred to business," said he, " but fear I made a mistake in 
 quitting it, which indeed I believe every man does who retires at ail 
 before he is absolutely worn out. Now, I was any thing but worn 
 out, for I retired at forty with a mere competency." 
 
 "That," said I, "is not usually the case with men in business, 
 especially if they succeed." 
 
280 
 
 DE CLIFFORD J 
 
 44 True, 1 ' returned he, 44 and I did not fail. But I had no ambi- 
 tion, and was not given to luxury ; and though I had not a learned 
 education, like you gentlemen of Oxford, I was fond of reading, and 
 grew fonder, I believe, of printed books than manuscript accounts. 
 So I read many curious stories, and one of them, concerning Dio- 
 genes (blackguard as he was), made me envy him." 
 
 44 Indeed, 1 ' said I ; 44 pray what was it?" 
 
 44 Why, you know it is said of him, that walking once in a fair, 
 where he saw mirrors and ribbons, fiddles and nut-crackers, hobby- 
 horses and what not, exposed to sale, he exclaimed, 4 Lord ! how 
 many things are there in the world of which Diogenes hath no need ! 1 
 Now I thought this very wise, and longed to imitate him. 11 
 
 44 In this I quite agree with you," observed I. 
 
 He seemed pleased, and then asked if Jeremy Taylor was not 
 thought a fine writer at Oxford. 
 
 I answered, 44 Very fine; but did you then study divinity as well 
 as anecdotes in your counting-house?" 
 
 44 Not exactly," he replied 5 44 but there are some fine things in 
 Jeremy on contentedness and independence, and also another account 
 of this same Diogenes, which struck me. It was quoted in Latin, 
 but I found that one reason why Diogenes preferred himself to 
 Aristotle was, that Aristotle was forced to dine when it pleased Phi- 
 lip ; he, when it pleased himself 1 . This was after my own heart." 
 
 44 And mine, loo," echoed I. 
 
 44 Then again," continued Ofellus, — for so I must call him, — 
 44 1 was got hold of by I knew not what notions of pastorals, country 
 contentments, and the pleasures of solitude. Upon these subjects, 
 Izaak Walton, and one Zimmerman, a German, made me mad, 
 though I never was a fisherman, and never lived alone. But with 
 these always alongside of my great ledger, I could not bear the 
 counting-house, and I had no sooner realized an annuity sufficient 
 for myself and a housekeeper (for with all my pastoral feelings, I 
 never was even in love, much less married), than I ran away to the 
 country, to be happy by myself." 
 
 44 And were you not so?" 
 
 44 Far from it." 
 
 " The reason?" 
 
 44 Why, for a long time I did not know 5 though I found it out 
 at last, by chancing to read of a man who had several houses, and 
 complained that though he was always changing from one to another 
 in search of happiness, he could not obtain what he sought. Upon 
 which a friend told him, that unless in these changes he left him- 
 self behind, he never could find what he wanted. The fault was in 
 himself, not his houses. This hit my case. I have had country 
 
 1 Prandct Aristoteles quando Philippo libet, Diogenes quando Diogeni. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 281 
 
 lodgings in five different counties ; I have been a recluse at the 
 lakes, and they not being romantic enough, I suppose, I established 
 myself on the Wye, but with no better success. I at first took to 
 fishing, for Walton's sake, and then shut myself up for Zimmer- 
 man's 5 but I had not patience to watch three hours for a bite, nor 
 food enough in my own mind for solitary meditation. In short, I 
 was ready to hang myself without knowing why, till on reflection I 
 found out the secret." 
 
 " I long to know it," said I. 
 
 "Why, I discovered it was all owing to my thinking myself fit 
 for a life of leisure when I was not. My whole time was on my 
 hands, and my book-notions of its charms failing, I did not know 
 what to do with myself." 
 
 " A good lesson for us all," observed I. 
 
 " Not for you," returned he, u for you have education, which I 
 had not. For though I was fond of reading, it was not properly di- 
 rected. I had much belter have stuck to my ledger." 
 
 "You have, however, changed your habits it should seem. You 
 have, at least, no signs of the blue devils you talked of." 
 
 " It is mainly owing," returned he, " to the daily walk which I 
 told you I take to Wallingford and back. I found that all the fine 
 writing in the world was thrown away upon a man that was not a 
 fit subject for it, and that perpetual study, and even laborious em- 
 ployment, is the only thing left for it, with one who has no profes- 
 sion to tie him to the world, nor resources in his thoughts to enable 
 him to live out of it. I found, too, that I got better and more prac- 
 tical notions of mankind in the market-place and coffee-room at 
 Wallingford, than from Zimmerman ; to say nothing of news of the 
 world, to which no man, not disgusted with it (say what he will), 
 can be indifferent." 
 
 This pleased me, and I parted with my self-taught philosopher — 
 who told me his name was Ryecroft — with something like regret. 
 He took leave of me at the end of a lane leading to his house, to 
 which, I must do him the justice to say, he invited me with suffi- 
 cient earnestness 5 but as I had to dine on the road, and meant to 
 get to Readkj that evening, I declined the invitation. 
 
282 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 MY ADVENTURES IN A FISHING-HOUSK ON THE RIVER LAMBURN. 
 
 The pleasant'sl angling is to see the fish 
 Gut with her golden oars the silver stream, 
 And greedily devour the treach'rous bait. 
 
 Shakspeare. — Much Ado About Nothing. 
 
 The two rencontres I have recorded, with two such opposite 
 characters as i met with, engaged my reflections for many a mile 
 afterwards, till I reached Thatcham, a pleasant village on the Lam- 
 burn, which rims into the Rennet, both famous for fishing. This 
 was about one o'clock, when, having been out five hours from 
 breakfast, something whispered me, in terms not to be mistaken, 
 that I wanted my noontide repast. Luckily for me, the landlord of 
 the " Jolly Angler " public-house had received the same warning, 
 for he was just sitting down to dinner, with his wife and children, 
 in the cleanest of kitchens, when I entered it with all the freedom 
 and confidence of a traveller who, though a pedestrian, knew he 
 could pay as well as call for what he liked. 
 
 The Jolly Angler was one of those rural, neat, and pretty inns, 
 which England alone presents to a traveller. It overhung the river; 
 and under the sign appeared inscribed, 6 'Excellent eels and trout 
 all the season through $ good fishing-rods, baits, and nets, supplied 
 by Christopher Chubb." 
 
 As I said, I boldly walked into the kitchen with my knapsack on 
 my shoulders, and found a table spread with very savoury eggs, 
 just out of the pan, and pickled pork, which, to my appetite, ex- 
 celled all the ragouts of an Apicius. To be sure, it was in the kit- 
 chen (and I had not yet dined in a kitchen), but the cloth and 
 platters were perfectly clean, and I wistfully snuffed the steam of 
 the viands. 
 
 The landlord having eyed my appearance, — not Jfcciviily, but 
 with not much reverence,— did not choose to disturbromself from 
 his dinner, upon which, though he had not walked ten miles, his 
 senses seemed to fix as keenly as mine. He therefore, without ris- 
 ing from his wooden chair, which, as master of the house, had arms 
 to it, asked me carelessly what I wanted, and whether I would not 
 walk into the tap-room. 
 
 " I would willingly," said I, " wait in one of your pretty par- 
 lours, that hang over the water, till you get me a chicken, and some 
 trout for dinner ; but, to tell the truth, I am so famished, that, if 
 you will give me leave, I would prefer taking a seat with you 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 283 
 
 here, and afterwards, perhaps, you will give me some negus in 
 your parlour." 
 
 At the words chicken, trout, and negus, there was an evident 
 change of looks, both in the landlord and his wife, and the latter, a 
 sleek, buxom, cherry-cheeked dame, of perhaps five and thirty 
 years, said with a smile, 
 
 " I am sure the gentleman speaks very politely ; but, Lor bless 
 me, he cannot surely demean himself to dine here with us." 
 
 " Deborah," said the landlord, u the gentleman knows best what 
 suits him 5 and if he will take up with our dinner, being, as he says, 
 very hungry, he is very welcome. I suppose, sir, you have come 
 a-sporting to the Jolly Angler? and well may it be, for it is known, 
 I may say, to half the kingdom, and even to the folks at Lunnon, 
 who come in swarms when the season is on. You have got your 
 gear, I suppose, in your knapsack ? Now that's the sign of a true 
 sportsman : that's what I like ; and if the sun goes in, after your 
 negus, I dare say I can shew you good entertainment on the river, 
 as well as in the parlour." 
 
 " Aye, sir," added the dame, " and possibly enough to keep you 
 till over to-morrow 5 for you know, husband, the gentleman who 
 has the white bed, does not come back till next day." 
 
 Finding my reception so altered under the supposition that I was 
 a sporting angler, and might be a permanent guest, I did not say 
 any thing to undeceive them, but sat down, and fell to in good 
 earnest, first ordering a tankard of foaming ale. 
 
 By what little shades of self-interest are we influenced in our 
 conduct to one another ! and yet are we all brothers of the same 
 flesh and blood, made by the some hand. 
 
 A silence of some minutes ensued, while we dispatched the eggs 
 and pickled pork, with a reinforcement of the former by Mrs. 
 Chubb, together with the proper concomitants of potatoes, and ex- 
 cellent cheese and butter. 
 
 The tankard was soon emptied, and another filled at my desire. 
 Nay, whether because pleased at the novelty of the scene, or with 
 my companions themselves, I desired my glass of negus to be en- 
 larged to a bowl, and shared by the company. 
 
 The landlord's heart opened. In truth, I believe neither he nor I 
 ever made a better dinner. Pity that Fothergill had not seen his 
 travelling disciple discussing this homely fare, and listening with 
 unfeigned curiosity to mine host, who grew quite eloquent in 
 praise of fishing and fishing-houses, and in particular as to the last, 
 of the Jolly Angler. 
 
 When I, in return, praised his fare, and complimented Mrs. 
 Chubb upon her cookery, 
 
 " Why, sir," said she, " I must say it did seem to go down well ? 
 and you were not above letting it." 
 
284 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 " That's all right, and according to natur," said her husband. 
 " Why you ate for all the world like a poor man." 
 
 " And much good may it do you," cried Mrs. Chubb, thinking, 
 perhaps, of the white bed, vacant for two nights. 
 
 " But why," asked I, not unwilling to hear Boniface's sentences, 
 " should not a rich man eat as well as a poor one? They are both 
 men, and have the same Maker." 
 
 "And that's quite true/' said Mrs. Deborah. "Perhaps the 
 gentleman has just taken orders; we have a many clergymen as 
 comes a-fishing here." 
 
 "And no more than they should," chimed in Mr. Chubb, "con- 
 sidering who they came from; for the Poslles were all fishers." 
 
 "Still," said I, ''you have not told us why a rich man may not 
 eat as heartily as a poor one?" 
 
 "God forbid he shouldn't ! " proceeded the host 5 " they have the 
 
 same mouths, and the same no, not the same stomachs, as I 
 
 was going to say, because you see But Deborah, hand me down 
 
 the book, which will tell the gentleman what I meant better than 
 I can myself." 
 
 At this, taking the book from his wife, which I found was the 
 precise old Walton, who had so misled Ryecroft, he presented it to 
 me, very much dog's-eared 5 and easily finding the passage, he 
 observed, 
 
 "An angler like you, sir, no doubt knows all about this excellent 
 book-, next to the bible, I have heard say by Dr. P. himself (and I 
 believe it), the most excellent book in all the world." 
 
 "And who is Dr. P.?" 
 
 " The greatest brother of the angle in England. In fact this book 
 belongs to him, though he always leaves it when he goes, till he 
 comes again to enjoy it." 
 
 Now I own, to my shame, I had not yet read a word of this old 
 Izaak, who was such a favourite with everybody j but of course I 
 did not choose to ruin my reputation by confessing it. However, 
 I listened with great approbation to the passage, which was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Poor men, and those who fast often, have much more pleasure 
 in eating than rich men and gluttons, that always feed before their 
 stomachs are empty of their last meat and call for more 5 for by that 
 means they rob themselves of that pleasure that hunger brings to 
 poor men. And I do seriously approve of that saying, that you would 
 raiher be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded poor angler, than 
 a drunken lord." 
 
 Having read these words emphatically, with divers looks at his 
 wife for support and approbation as he went along, (looks which 
 she most dutifully obeyed), he continued, 
 
 Cu You see, sir. I was not without reason when I thought to com- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 285 
 
 pliment you by saying, you ate like a poor man. So here's to ye, 
 and I hope the negus is to your liking." 
 
 I assured him nothing could be better 5 when he went on to say, 
 that the book was indeed a wonderful book, and had a deal more 
 in it than concerned fishing, being almost about every thing that a 
 man could like or care for, and for that matter, might have been 
 written by a parson ; at least there were many parsons who did not 
 preach half such good sermons as there were even in the songs, 
 which seemed made on purpose to make people good and happy. 
 
 "Perhaps the gentleman would like to hear one of them," said 
 Mrs. Chubb 5 " and I am sure after such a nice treat as he has given 
 us in this here negus (filling her glass), you ought to give it him 5 
 that is, if he should like it, not unless. Our Kit, sir," she proceeded, 
 addressing herself to me, "knows them all by heart; and when the 
 trout and eel feast is held here, as it is at Whitsuntide, he be always 
 called upon by the gentlemen to dine and sing with them ; and they 
 say he beats our parish clerk all to nothing." 
 
 "0! Deborah," said the conscious husband (as if unwilling to 
 have his merits revealed, yet not sorry for the disclosure), "you 
 need not have said any thing about that 5 but if the gentleman would 
 wish to hear the praises of angling, which, being so fond of the sport 
 himself, no doubt he does, " 
 
 I felt a little puzzled at this, but assured him nothing would please 
 me more. Indeed I had begun to be highly entertained, and my 
 curiosity was much moved. The honest landlord, therefore, having 
 cleared his throat with another glass, and given me the book to follow 
 the words, began : — 
 
 " Oh ! the gallant fisher's life 
 It is the best of any ; 
 'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, 
 And 'tis beloved by many. 
 
 Other joys 
 
 Are but toys, 
 
 Only this 
 
 Lawful is, 
 
 For our skill 
 
 Breeds no ill, 
 
 But content and pleasure. 
 
 " In a morning up we rise 
 Ere Aurora's peeping, 
 Drink a cup to wash our eyes, 
 Leave the sluggard sleeping. 
 
 Then we go 
 
 To and fro, 
 
 With our knacks 
 
 Upon our backs, 
 
 To such streams 
 
 As the Thames, 
 
 !f we have the leisure." 
 
286 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 "There, sir, 1 ' said Mr, Chubb, slopping to take breath, " you 
 see this is none of your drunken songs ; but, as Dr. P. says, contains 
 a dale of morality. Not that I have any objection to a bit of a jolly 
 song, just to keep up the pleasure of a meeting or club, for the good 
 of a house 5 but then it must not go farther than be merry and wise ; 
 for, as Deborah knows, I allow no drunkenness at the Jolly Angler 
 — indeed, I should lose my licence if I did." 
 
 I deferred entirely to this reason for my host's morality, and 
 commended his song, particularly for the good sentiments it 
 exhibited. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said he, "for, as Dr. P. says, it is all amoral. There 
 is first pleasure indeed, bat void of strife, and therefore harmless ; 
 then it breeds no ill, but enjoins content; then it recommends early 
 rising, and to leave the sluggard in bed; and what consarns us 
 landlords more, it recommends a morning cup." 
 
 "Does Doctor P. particularly approve that?" asked I. 
 
 "Not particularly a cup of ale/' replied Boniface ; " but then he 
 always takes his tea and cold ham or eggs, as it may be, before he 
 goes a-fishing, and that is equally for the good of the house." 
 
 "Which is perhaps the principal moral of the song," said I. 
 
 " Why you see, sir, all trades must live, and ours is not an easy 
 one so many people to please. Sometimes a gentleman won't come 
 to a house, because one of an opposite party uses it, which is always 
 the case when a town is divided between Whig and Tory. But the 
 beauty of fishing is, that it has nothing to do with politics ; and all 
 parties, if they are fond of the sport, which all ought to be, will 
 forget themselves for the moment, and eat and drink and be merry, 
 when they are tired and hungry, all the same; which does a dale 
 of good, as I say, to the landlords." 
 
 " I suppose, then," observed I, more and more amused, " that 
 you and Mrs. Chubb are of no party? " 
 
 " Why, as to Mrs. Chubb, I always say, women shouldn't meddle 
 with any thing that don't consarn them, but mind their cooking, 
 and washing, and children ; and, as to myself, my motto has always 
 been, ' handsome is, as handsome does.' To be sure, in secret, I 
 am for church and king, which is, I believe, as much as to say, a 
 Tory ; but then, if a Whig gentleman should drive up to the door, 
 and spend his money freely, as you may do, sir, or perhaps stay 
 two or three days, to examine the beauty of the place, as you will, 
 I hope, also do, I have no right to consarn myself with what he 
 thinks of politics, any more than what Sir Harry Englefield, and 
 other Roman Catholic gentlemen, thinks of religion, when they 
 come here, as they often do, to eat a fish dinner in Lent* And so, 
 sir, as I see the bowl is out (unless you should please to order 
 another), and the sky is nice and cloudy, I will attend you, if you 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT M A.N. 
 
 287 
 
 please, up Ihe river, and charge you nothing for attendance, but 
 only for the boat." 
 
 4i And what may that be ? " asked I. 
 
 44 Half-a-crown if you go alone 5 five shillings if I go with you. 1 ' 
 
 44 J thought you said nothing for attendance?" 
 
 4 4 That is, I meant attendance upon you; but I shall have to 
 mind the boat, you know." 
 
 By this time I had taken a pretty good measure of the manners 
 and principles of the landlord of the Jolly Angler ^ and as I never 
 had handled a rod in my life, and meant not to learn, at least on 
 that afternoon, I felt rather embarrassed to get rid of this quasi en- 
 gagement, which, though of the host's own making, I felt I had 
 encouraged by my silence. It was, indeed, to his surprise and almost 
 consternation, when I excused myself from the party, as I had a 
 particular engagement at Reading that evening. 
 
 He stared ■ and his wife coming in at that moment, said it was 
 very strange that a gentleman should not know his own mind, par- 
 ticularly as she had been up-stairs to gel the white bed ready. I 
 observed, too, that the landlord, in giving me my knapsack, hand- 
 led it with an air of contempt, and even anger, observing, that 
 there did not seem much tackle in it, and that if it had been but a 
 little larger, he should have taken it for a pedlar's pack. 
 
 He recovered himself a little when I paid the bill, which would 
 have done no discredit, in amount at least, to a London hotel. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 MORE ADVENTURES. — I MEET WITH A STILL MORE EXTRAORDINARY TRAVELLER TIIAN 
 I HAVE YET SEEN. 
 
 Oh, master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance 
 again after a tabor and pipe. He sings tunes faster than you can tell money; 
 he utters them as he had eaten ballads. He has songs for men and women 
 of all sizes.— No milliner can so fit his customer with gloves. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Winter's Tale. 
 
 44 So much," thought I, on turning my back on mine host of the 
 Jolly Angler — 44 so much for little landlords who profess morality 
 and quote Walton." 
 
 I was not the less, however, in a frame of mind to be amused 
 with an account of still farther lucubrations on the part of Mr. 
 Chubb, in respect of my personal appearance, which, rather cu- 
 riously, I learned from a brother knapsack like myself, who found 
 me loitering on the road io Pangburne, on the Kennet side, a few 
 miles from Thatcham. 
 
288 
 
 DE CLIFFORD-, 
 
 This next acquaintance of mine appeared a real pedlar, whose 
 strength of back filled me with respect, for his knapsack was a pack 
 of at least a quarter of a hundred weight. 
 
 I was sitting, as he approached, on the parapet of one of the little 
 bridges over the river ( a resting-place I always choose, wherever 
 I find it, for the sake of its pleasant prospect up and down a stream, 
 and the reflections it inspires) when he came up and saluted me. 
 Till then he had been singing like Autolycus in the play — 
 
 " Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, 
 And merrily hent the stile a ; 
 A merry heart goes all the day, 
 Your sad tires in a mile-a '." 
 
 " Save you, sir, and good afternoon," said he, resting his pack 
 against the wall of the bridge. 
 
 " The same to you," returned 1 5 and we mutually surveyed each 
 other. 
 
 There was something keen, or rather cunning in his eye, as he 
 looked at me, and a sort of sardonic expression in the smile with 
 which he said, " You have had a pleasant walk from Thatcham sir." 
 
 As I was now used to these interruptions, I no longer stood upon 
 my dignity to play the exclusive with my fellow vagabonds, so 
 asked him how he knew I came from Thalcham ? 
 
 44 Oh, I heard of you in different places," returned he. 44 A friend 
 of mine, Dr. Firebrass, whom I saw on the Wallingford coach, as 
 it stopt to water, told me I might overtake you, for you walked 
 slow, though you were to get to Reading this evening, and had pro- 
 mised to attend his lecture." 
 
 4 4 I made no such promise," said I, 44 though I may do it out of 
 curiosity. But pray, who else may have told you of me?" 
 
 44 Why I just stopt," he answered, 44 at the Jolly Angler for a 
 pint, and the landlord was describing you to two or three other 
 guests in the tap-room; and as to his outer description, there is 
 no mistaking you. I hope I don't make too free, in resting my 
 pack so close to yours." 
 
 I did not much like the familiarity of being taken for a brother- 
 pedlar ; but, not much offended, I said, I supposed Mr. Chubb 
 described something more than my mere outside; 44 may be, that 
 I was a travelling merchant like yourself?" 
 
 "Not exactly so," replied he, 44 though it was one of his many 
 guesses." 
 
 44 Which were not over creditable, perhaps to my character? " 
 
 44 Why, as to that, whatever they were, he allowed that you 
 spent your money very freely, but said that all was not gold that 
 glitters — I beg pardon again for being so free." 
 
 ' Winter's Tale. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 289 
 
 "O!" cried I, "there's no occasion-, I should really like to 
 know what he thought I was, for he seemed so out of humour at 
 his mistake in thinking me a gentleman sportsman come to fish, 
 that he had begun to be discourteous before I left the house." 
 
 " Shall I tell you, and not make you angry? " asked the pedlar. 
 
 " By all means." 
 
 " Why, at first he thought you a Methodist parson going to 
 some congregation ; for, said he, ' them messengers of the elect, 
 however plain and humble they travel in appearance, always pam- 
 per themselves, when they can, like a lord, and to be sure I hope 
 he will have more mercy upon his penitent brethren than he had 
 upon the fried eggs.' Upon this we all laughed." 
 
 "Well, what afterwards?" 
 
 "He then thought you a nobleman's valet, who had left his 
 place, and was tramping it home on foot, but so accustomed to the 
 luxuries of the steward's room, that you could not do without them, 
 for ale would not satisfy you. His wife, however, refuted that, by 
 saying, that when you paid the bill, you took out a purse full of 
 gold, so could not be a valet out of place. If this was true, and you 
 shewed your gold, I would take the liberty of advising you another 
 time not to be so indiscreet 5 nobody knows who one meets at them 
 public-houses, and some of the people who heard this might fol- 
 low you on purpose to get at the purse. Did you really shew 
 much gold?" 
 
 6 1 Enough, I suppose," said I, "to pay expenses." 
 
 Here I put my hand into my breeches pocket, to ascertain the 
 safety of my purse, which my companion observing, said he was 
 glad to find I had not lost it ; adding, however, that he thought I 
 had better not carry too much money about me. 
 
 I thanked him for his caution, and asked if I had any other cha- 
 racter with my good landlord? 
 
 "Why yes; but this beats the others in impudence, and really 
 I dare not mention it." 
 
 " O! let's have it. It can hardly be worse." 
 
 " You must know, then, that whilst we were in the midst of this 
 talk, a constable comes in with a kind of hue-and-cry paper, stating 
 that the Wallingford bank had been robbed the night before — which 
 indeed I knew — and offering a reward for the discovery of the 
 thief. It also described the persons of the several strangers who had 
 been in the town that evening. Among these was one in a sort of 
 shooting-jacket, black stock, and a knapsack on his back supposed 
 to be a soldier." 
 
 "That looks very like me," said I, somewhat amused, yet an- 
 noyed, for I thought I might get into trouble by it on the road, and 
 I was not satisfied with the keen look and sneer which the pedlar 
 assumed while he informed me that the uncharitable Chubb de- 
 I. 19 
 
290 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 clared to his guests he thought I must be the man. The pedlar 
 himself evidently looked uncertain as to the point, and observed 
 that I did not seem to like the intelligence. 
 
 " I am afraid it disturbs you, friend," said he " but of course it 
 •cannot be you." 
 
 " G racious heaven ! " cried I, " do I look so conscious? If inno- 
 cence is disconcerted at being merely suspected, what must be the 
 case of actual guilt? " 
 
 44 What indeed? " said the pedlar, and he gave a significant shrug 
 with his shoulders. " But I am only surprised," added he, " that 
 I was not myself put into the Hue-and-Cry, for I was at Walling- 
 ford all day yesterday at the Lammas fair, and I sold many a penny- 
 worth; in short, emptied my pack, and filled it again with my 
 profits. Yet it would be wrong to suspect a hard-working, honest 
 man on that account." 
 
 44 Wrong indeed," answered 1 ; 44 yet you gentlemen pedlars are 
 everywhere, and must sometimes be exposed to suspicion. You 
 must, however, see and know a great deal of the world." 
 
 44 That we ought to do," rejoined he, 4 4 for we work hard for 
 it. It is a laborious, but sometimes not an unpleasant life, which 
 repays us often for our pains. We are admitted every where, and 
 though they may not buy, every body is glad to see us, particularly 
 the w r omen (sometimes the mistresses, always the maids) ; and if we 
 are reasonable — that is, charge not above twenty or thirty per cent, 
 on goods— to a cook or housekeeper, we are pretty sure of a tit-bit 
 and a cup, besides the profit. O! it's a great deal better than 
 tailoring all day, with one's knees up to one's chin; or bending 
 over a desk, driving a quill, or even dinning bonus, bona, bonum, 
 into a stupid boy." 
 
 44 1 cry you mercy," said 1 5 44 1 see you are a man of education, 
 which I did not know you gentlemen of the pack were." 
 
 44 Neither are we all," replied he, 44 but I perhaps am an excep- 
 tion. For I was not born to carry this camel's hump about with me. 
 Mine has been a varied life." 
 
 44 Your adventures, I should think, must be very amusing, had 
 we time and a convenient place to hear ihem." 
 
 And I began to think how Fothergill would rejoice in such an op- 
 portunity to gratify his favourite speculations. 
 
 44 A hot evening sun, on a stone bridge," answered the pedlar, 
 4 4 does not give much encouragement to a long story; but among 
 the osiers there on the bend of the river, on this side Pangburne, 
 there is an honest public-house, called the Eel-pie House, where 
 the ale is excellent, and the landlady civil, not to mention a comely 
 young daughter who serves the customers ; and if you will stand 
 treat for a tankard, I should have no objection, as you are so cu- 
 rious, to tell you some of my history." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 291 
 
 This exactly falling in with my scheme of travelling, I agreed, 
 and was led, nothing loth, to the sign of " The West Country Barge, 
 or Eel-pie House, by Sarah Snow, widow." 
 
 Here, on our arrival at a little garden gate, which led to the 
 house, my friend began another song of Autolycus, and in no mean 
 voice sung out, 
 
 " Will you buy any tape, 
 
 Or lace for your cape, 
 My dainty duck, my dear-a? 
 
 Any silk, any thread, 
 
 Any toys for your head, 
 Of the newest and finest -wear-a ? 
 
 Come to the pedlar ; 
 
 Money's a medler, 
 That doth utter all men's ware-a '." 
 
 This address brought out the landlady's daughter, a pretty lass, 
 of about seventeen, who came with seeming gladness to the gate 
 to let us in. 
 
 "Ah! George," said she, " I thought it was you." 
 
 She then told us mother was gone milking, and justified, as to 
 comeliness, all that was said of her by the pedlar. Him she at first 
 treated with familiar smiles, denoting old, not to say intimate ac- 
 quaintance, though she afterwards addressed him by his surname 
 of Mr. Handcock 5 and Mr. Handcock introduced me to her in 
 form as Miss Betsy Snow. In doing this, he remarked that she 
 deserved her name, if only from the whiteness of her skin, a com- 
 pliment with which, though hit called up a blush, she seemed far 
 from displeased. Nor was her pleasure less when he told her that 
 he had matched her ribbons at Wallingford fair, and brought her 
 the fairings he had promised her. They were the prettiest fringed 
 gloves, he said, in the world, and only one other pair, the fellow to 
 them, in the whole fair,; and these instantly bought up by Lady 
 Blackstone; an intimation which added, seemingly, to Miss Snow s 
 complacency. 
 
 He then proposed the tankard I was to treat him with ; but I 
 (somewhat more delicate), having dined well, asked if I could not 
 have some tea, while he drank his ale? Miss Betsy said yes. Mr. 
 Handcock declared there was none belter to be had in all Reading ; 
 and the kettle announcing by its singing that the water was ready, 
 it was in a few minutes served in a neat enough room, with a 
 window to the water. 
 
 Here, while our respective beverages went on, I listened to my 
 companion's promised adventures. 
 
 ! Winter's Tale, 
 
292 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 THE PEDLAR'S STORY. 
 
 Here's more matter for a hot brain. Every lane's end, every shop, church, 
 session, hanging, yields a careful man work. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Winter's Tale. 
 
 Mr. Handcock commenced his recital thus 
 
 " I told you I was not born to carry a pack $ nor indeed to do 
 many things which ( God help me ! ) I have done." 
 
 Here he gave a sort of sigh, which, however, soon vanished. 
 
 " And yet," continued he, " my birth had not much to boast of; 
 though it was a high birth too, for it was in the loftiest garret in the 
 good town of Reading, where my mother enacted the part and 
 profession of a midwife, while my father sold coals and potatoes in 
 a cellar below. You will be surprised, therefore, at my appearing 
 to disdain my pack-, but the truth is, I was, as you called me, a 
 gentleman of education, if reading a great quantity of trash, and 
 worse than trash, be education. It corrupted me, indeed, to the 
 backbone, but it gave me much knowledge of the differences of 
 the lots of men. 
 
 " You may suppose that my father could not defray the charge 
 of thus schooling me •, and, in fact, till twelve or thirteen, I could 
 neither write nor read, but was employed in helping my father in 
 weighing out coals, in which I fear the weights were not always so 
 true as they ought to have been. I would willingly have helped my 
 mother, too, in her vocation, if she had permitted ; for I was a handy 
 lad, ready for any and all work, and noticed by everybody for the 
 smartness with which I ran of errands, and carried notes and mes- 
 sages between the officers in our country quarters and their sweet- 
 hearts, by which I got many a sixpence. 
 
 u I also helped the journeyman of a neighbouring apothecary, 
 in delivering bottles of doctor's stuff without breaking them. 
 
 "Nobody of my inches could be compared with me at foot-ball, 
 and when not employed in any of these ways, I rambled about the 
 fields and lanes with other blackguards, with whom I am afraid I 
 was guilty of robbing a few orchards ; but that's a trifle — I wish I 
 could say that was the worst thing I ever did in my life." 
 
 Here Mr. Handcock began to look serious again 5 so, to comfort 
 him, I said, I dared to say these were only a few youthful pranks, 
 which might easily be forgiven. 
 
 " Well," said he, " it's no use thinking 5 what is done is done, 
 and so I shall go on, by telling you that, among other things for 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 293 
 
 which I was remarkable, I had an excellent voice and ear for music, 
 and a good memory, and took to learning by heart and singing 
 songs, so as to attract the notice of our parish clerk, who, being in 
 want of just such a voice as mine, enlisted me in his music gal- 
 lery, and gave me a few coppers every Sunday for singing psalms.' 1 
 " Psalms!" exclaimed I. 
 
 " Yes 5 and well sung too ; for my voice was a finer treble than 
 any one's else, and I became admired by the whole congregation, 
 and the parson himself, who, wanting just such a boy to clean knives 
 and shoes, bargained with my father to keep me in board and give 
 me a suit of clothes once in two years, for which I was to do every 
 thing he and the maids desired me." 
 
 " Had he many maids ?" 
 
 u Two; but I am not come to them yet." 
 
 "But what of the doctor?" 
 
 " To do him justice, he was very pious and good, upon the 
 whole, though there was very little meat in the potatoe pies on 
 which he used to feed us. But he was really a religious person, 
 prayed a great deal, and made us pray too, which first opened my 
 mind to the notion that there was such a thing as religion." 
 
 " Good!" said I, " and I hope good came of it." 
 
 " Not much, I fear, for I soon forgot it." 
 
 Here the pedlar once more looked grave, but proceeded. 
 
 " My master, who, as 1 said, was really good-natured, finding 
 me, though so sharp, utterly ignorant, made his clerk, who kept a 
 day school, take me among his scholars, without charging any 
 thing for it, though he docked me of the Sunday coppers which he 
 used to give me for singing. I made progress, however, and could 
 soon read, and became so fond of it, that my master presented me 
 with a Bible, which he got cheap from the Bible Society, and which, 
 together with the 4 Whole Duty of Man,' he used to make me read 
 to him by the hour, till I own I was tired, and it was a relief to me 
 to clean knives. 
 
 " Not content with this, he used to make me read one, two,. or 
 three sermons a day, upon true faith, and things about mysteries, 
 as they were called, to be believed but not understood, and which, 
 for not understanding, he punished me by mulcting me of my scanty 
 dinner. 
 
 "This drove me to schemes of retribution, and as Mrs. Biddy, 
 the cook, always locked up the pantry, I own I thought it but fair 
 to right myself, and by the help of a friend a year or two older, a 
 blacksmith's apprentice, I got a false key to the pantry, which I 
 visited, not only when I was unjustly deprived of my dinner, but 
 whenever I found myself hungry, which was not seldom, after 
 having had it. 
 
 " This did not go on long 5 for the frequent defalcations coukl 
 
294 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 not escape Mrs. Biddy, who taxed me with it, and though I denied 
 it stoutly when she complained to the doctor, he would not believe 
 me, but turned me away in disgrace. What was worse, he would 
 not believe me either when I denounced the cook in return, for 
 having, as was true, given a plate of cold beef to a man with whom 
 she kept company. I was called a wicked dog, who would cer- 
 tainly come to the gallows in this world, and go to the devil in the 
 next. For the sake of my voice, however, I was allowed still to sing 
 in the church, notwithstanding my delinquencies. 
 
 " I returned again to be an errand-boy, only with more accom- 
 plishments, for I could now read and write 5 though I know not if 
 that did me good, for it got me the place of shop-boy at a circulat- 
 ing library, much resorted to by both sexes in the town, and the 
 gentry in the neighbourhood." 
 
 " Could that do you harm?" asked I. 
 
 " In point of comfort, no \ in its consequences, yes; for in the 
 intervals of serving books to the shop visitors, I read them myself 5 
 and as they were all novels, I am loth to say what damage they did 
 to my mind. The very best of them filled me with notions of in- 
 trigue, swindling, corrupt pleasures, and successful profligacy. Not 
 one word about religion : indeed, in those I read, there did not 
 seern to be such a thing in the world, so that I soon forgot what 
 little the doctor had forced into me. It is certain I never thought 
 afterwards of sermons, or the c Whole Duly of Man.' 
 
 " This was the more dangerous, because from the fascinations 
 thrown about these pictures in the books I read, by style, wit, and 
 glowing description, my virtue was gone before I knew it was in 
 danger. " 
 
 " Your virtue," said I, laughing, " which you had acquired in 
 delivering coals with false weights, robbing orchards and pantries, 
 and carrying on intrigues between officers and their sweethearts ! 
 But pray, may I ask who the authors were who so delighted and 
 so corrupted you ? 
 
 "Those that most engaged me," replied he, "were Gusman 
 (Tsllfarache, or the Spanish Rogue $ Lazarillo di Tormes, not 
 much better 5 and the histories of Don Raphael and Scipio, in Gil 
 Bias. Upon my word, that Spain must be a fine field for the pro- 
 fession of a rascal. It was Gil Bias, however, I may say, that gave 
 me a taste for the wandering life I look to. Its changing scenes, its 
 actors and actresses, gallants and ladies, sharpers and merry beg- 
 gars, independence of travelling, and dinners under hedges, abso- 
 lutely disqualified me for settled occupation. No wonder that I ran 
 away." 
 
 44 Ran away ! What, from your entertaining books ?" 
 u O! no-, from the tailor's shop-board, where next I embarked. 
 For one advantage I derived from psalm-singing was this, — a top- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 295 
 
 ping tailor in the town, very evangelical, was so struck wilh it, that 
 he offered to take me 'prentice, if I would sing hymns to him of an 
 evening. This I was persuaded to accept, bul soon found my usual 
 longing for liberty 5 and as there was no other way of cancelling 
 my indentures, one fine morning I bolted. But it was Gil Bias, I 
 verily believe, which produced this disposition to get loose ; and 
 lucky for me that the examples I read in him, and others of the 
 same kidney, did not make me turn robber, or swindler, or, at 
 best, a common beggar." 
 
 " Like another Reginald Pole Carew," said I. 
 
 44 For heaven's sake, do not mention that book, for it certainly 
 went farther to turn me into a vagabond than any other. Though 
 even, without a printed recommendation, a beggar's life does not 
 seem altogether without enjoyment. I have observed in them, 
 amidst their rags, a mirth and merriment, which carelessness of all 
 future evils alone can give 5 and while I sing the famous beggar's 
 ballad of Frank Davison, made in the merry days of Charles the 
 Second, I cannot help agreeing wilh his view of this singular class." 
 
 44 Can you give a specimen of it?" 
 
 "Yes: 
 
 ' Bright shines the sun, play, beggars, play, 
 Here's scraps enough to serve to-day. 
 What noise of viols is so sweet, 
 As when our merry clappers ring? 
 What mirth doth want when beggars meet? 
 A beggar's life is for a king. 
 Eat, drink, and play, sleep when we list, 
 Go where we will— so stocks be miss'd. 
 Bright shines the day, play, beggars, play, 
 Here's scraps enough to serve to-day.' " 
 
 " Careless enough," observed I. 
 
 44 There is great deal more of it, all to the same tune, and it had 
 its effect upon me, I assure you : but what chiefly influenced me 
 to be a knight of the pack, was Aulolycus, in Shakspeare. O ! he 
 was a first-rate fellow ! " 
 
 44 If you mean the pedlar in the Winter's Tale/' replied 1, 4 4 he 
 was a first-rate scoundrel." 
 
 I said this sternly, for I really now began to eye my new ac- 
 quaintance with something very like suspicion. Perhaps he per- 
 ceived it, for he instantly returned, 
 
 44 O ! I am aware of that ; but, as in the other instances I men- 
 tioned, I could separate the bad from the good. I hope you do not 
 suspect me of following the evil parts of his character. Why, he 
 was a downright thief, and picks a pocket on the stage : God pre- 
 serve me from such wickedness! It was only the agreeable parts of 
 Aulolycus that I felt disposed to admire." 
 
 44 Pray, what are they?" said I, drily 5 to which he answered, 
 
296 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 "His extraordinary ascendency over men's imaginations and 
 credulity, which must have been a never-failing scource of amuse- 
 ment, and even of study— the study of human nature. I wish I 
 could remember the passage, but I have got the play in my pack ; 
 I am seldom without it." So saying, he unlocked his bag, and 
 producing the play, turned to what he seemed to read with unction : 
 
 " £ Ha, ha ! what a fool honesty is, and trust his sworn brother, 
 a very simple gentleman ! I have sold all my trumpery. Not a 
 counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table- 
 book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tye, or horn-ring, to keep my 
 pack from fasting : they throng, who shall buy first; as if my 
 trinkets had been hallowed, and brought a benediction to the 
 buyer. ' 
 
 " He must have had a rare trade of it, that Autolycus, and this I 
 own was what chiefly made me turn pedlar 5 for if men will be gulls, 
 I have no business to prevent them." 
 
 " Excellent morality," said I. 
 
 "But then he sung so well," continued Handcock, " that every- 
 body must have been fascinated, and that alone would make people 
 buy. 
 
 ' Lawn as white as driven snow ; f 
 Cyprus, black as e'er was crow : 
 Gloves, as sweet as damask roses; 
 Masks for faces, and for noses.' 
 
 And so on. 
 
 "Well, I never came to a farm-house, but by singing I was 
 asked in, sold my wares, set people a-talking, and got at their se- 
 crets. O ! with your curiosity, the life would suit you to a T. Per- 
 haps I may yet see you one of us. At any rate, you see it is a 
 pleasant life, and you cannot wonder that I shirked the tailor." 
 
 I own I now did not know what to make of Mr. Autolycus 
 Handcock. That he might by possibility be honest, I would not 
 deny 5 that, by more than possibility, he was a rogue, was I thought 
 clear ; and I began to consider how I might shake him off. Other 
 suspicions came into my head. It was equally clear that his atten- 
 tions to the fair girl of the house boded no good to the latter 5 she 
 evidently looked up to him as a superior being, and though he was 
 above forty years old, had a copper nose, the effect of drink, a fur- 
 rowed cheek, and a pimpled skin, tanned almost black with tra- 
 velling in the sun, she was evidently so pleased with his ready talk, 
 his apparent openness, his merriment, his songs, and his tales, and 
 above all, with his unceasing compliments to herself, that all dis- 
 parity, whether of age or person, seemed long to have ceased in 
 her mind, and if they did not marry, it was evidently not her fault. 
 Her mother, a decent woman, had now joined us, and I would have 
 given much to have known how to warn her of her daughter's dan- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 297 
 
 ger 5 but, stranger as I was to both, I could not manage it ; — and 
 I not only felt that any thing I could say to the pedlar himself would 
 be laughed at, but he now declared his intention of staying where 
 he was all night, a thing which I found he had not unfrequenlly 
 done before. 
 
 In the end, what he did by choice, I was compelled to do against 
 my will, for I loo was forced to remain, by what there is no answer- 
 ing for— the elements. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 THE UNLOOKED-FOR CATASTROPHE OF THE PEDLAR. — -MY OWN UNEASINESS THEREON „ 
 AND MY FARTHER PROGRESS IN MY TOUR. 
 
 Who's there besides foul weather? 
 
 One minded like the weather, most unquietly. 
 
 Let the great Gods, 
 That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads, 
 Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch. 
 That hast within thee undivulged crimes, 
 Unwhipt of justice !— Shakspeare.— King Lear. 
 
 We had loitered so long over our tea and ale, not to mention our 
 discourse, that it was now near eight o'clock, and I had full six miles 
 more to accomplish to get to Reading. 
 
 This would have been nothing in a summer evening, had it been 
 even farther advanced ; and the bean-flower, which perfumed the 
 whole country, would have only made the journey a sweeter Mid- 
 summer-night's dream. But the sultry day began suddenly to pro- 
 duce what it generally does when the clouds have sufficiently con- 
 glomerated — a storm ; and this one came on with peculiar force. 
 It first began with a rushing of wind from the north, which, though 
 at first only in a sort of melancholy moan, gained force with every 
 minute, and at length swept along the valley, as if it would tear up 
 every thing, by the roots. 
 
 Soon it thundered from the south \ the lightning was incessant 
 and dreadful ; for already had it split several trees close to us. At 
 length the whole mass of clouds poured down in cataracts, as if the 
 treasure-house in which the psalmist supposed them to be heaped 
 had been suddenly opened. 
 
 Yet even these effects of the storm were not so disheartening as 
 its long continuance. For its cessation, which we looked for every 
 ten minutes, became hopeless, and the deep darkness at every in- 
 terval of the lightning, by rendering our situation more uncertain, 
 made it more fearful. The flashes, too, had now disclosed that the 
 river had burst its banks, and was rapidly approaching the walls of 
 our low-built mansion. This completed our terror. 
 
298 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 Altogether, neither before nor since have I ever remembered 
 such a war of elements-, and had I been an ancient pagan, I should 
 have thought I had seen Jupiter himself, darting his thunderbolts 
 and directing the whirlwind. Often afterwards have I called it to 
 mind, in reading the sublime passages that describe the power of 
 the true Jupiter, Jehovah, over these his stupendous instruments — 
 
 4< The waters saw thee, O God! the waters saw thee and were afraid." 
 
 " The air thundered, and thine arrows went abroad." 
 
 " Thy lightnings shone upon the ground, the earth trembled and quaked ; 
 the very foundations of the hills shook because he was wroth." 
 
 " He bowed the heavens, and came down, and it was dark under his feet." 
 
 •« He rode upon the Gherubims, and came flying upon the wings of the wind." 
 
 " He made darkness his secret place, his pavilion round about him, with 
 dark water, and thick clouds to cover him V 
 
 What we were to do was now a question, for the Eel-pie House 
 was, I thought, in a fair way of being drowned with all its inhabi- 
 tants, and I proposed to sally forth to avoid that fate, though to 
 meet another. But the landlady, who was much the most collected 
 of us all, said she had experienced this before, and the river never 
 could rise higher than a deep channel made for a backwater, about 
 twenty yards from the house, which carried it off. 
 
 This consoled us ; but what most struck me was, that the reckless 
 Mr. Handcock, all day so bold and flippant, seemed more affected 
 with terror than the rest. He was absolutely appalled. At every flash 
 of the lightning he blinked, and begged that all the shutters of the 
 house might be fast closed. As the thunder broke over our heads, 
 he turned pale and trembled 5 and at some of the peals, peculiarly 
 terrific from being close to us, he cried out, as if in pain, "Oh! 
 God, be merciful ! " 
 
 Presently the chimney, struck with lightning, came down with a 
 crash of horror, and he exclaimed, with a terror of features and a 
 trembling of limbs which I never shall forget, that the day of judg- 
 ment was come. 
 
 The poor, trembling Betsy, more frightened than ever at this, 
 clasped him with her arms, and screamed in agony. His own was 
 scarcely less, and in rising in agitation from his seat, something fell 
 either from it, or his person, with a loud jingle, on the floor. 
 
 Judge my astonishment, when I picked it up, to find it was my 
 purse, which, it may be recollected, I had felt safe in my pocket 
 upon the bridge, where I had first met Handcock. 
 
 Though the continuation of the storm allowed little time for re- 
 flection, still less for accusation, I had not now a doubt in my own 
 mind that the fellow was a thief, and had robbed me on the bridge 
 where we had been close neighbours, and his horror at Autolycus 
 for picking a pocket did any thing but refute the supposition. His 
 
 1 PsalmS, 18-77-97. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 299 
 
 present terror indeed shewed that he had some notion of the ven- 
 geance of heaven 5 but that by no means exempted him from so 
 well-founded a suspicion. 
 
 Be that as it might, the lightnings did not prevent my claiming 
 the purse as mine, and to prove it, I named its contents — twenty- 
 seven guineas— which proved correct. At any rate, the landlady 
 said it was not her's, and upon my putting it to Handcock to know 
 if it was his, that accomplished person, with eyes up-raised, de- 
 clared that it seemed all a dream how it came there, and that it 
 must have worked out of my own pocket and lodged upon his chair 
 before it fell. 
 
 The landlady said it was very likely 5 and as the pedlar was too 
 frightened to play the bully, and I too glad to have escaped from 
 such a loss, I thought it best to say no more about it then. 
 
 The storm having now lasted three hours, with different degrees 
 of violence, began at last to lull. The thunder ceased, the waters, 
 as the landlady had foretold, had gone off in another direction, and 
 the wind, instead of bellowing, had subsided again into a melancholy 
 moan. 
 
 I began then, late as it was, to think of prosecuting my journey ; 
 but this was not unreasonably opposed by Mrs. Snow, who said, 
 what seemed true enough, that the waters must be out so as to pre- 
 vent a man, even in the day-time, from proceeding on his way, and 
 to make it in the night, impossible 5 that it would be one or two 
 o'clock before I could get to Reading, and nobody would be up 5 
 that she had an excellent spare bed, and would get something for 
 supper to comfort us after our fright. 
 
 All this appeared so reasonable, that I was disposed to comply ; 
 my only doubt was, what was to become of the honest Handcock, as 
 the bed I was to have would have been occupied by him had I not 
 been there. This proceeded from any thing, I fear, but regard. 
 Truth is, I did not like the thought of any bed at all in so lone a 
 place, with a gentleman for my close neighbour, so formed, as he 
 evidently was, upon the models of Autolycus and the wandering 
 sharpers of Gil Bias. 
 
 On the other hand, to sit up all night with this said gentleman, 
 who had just picked my pocket, and knew that I must be convinced 
 of it, was no pleasant alternative. Even the women of the house, 
 with whom he was so intimate, did not appear to me, on that ac- 
 count, in the most favourable light; and the man himself, his fear 
 of heaven over, appeared sullen, dogged, and thoughtful. He looked 
 out at the weather several times, saying that, as heknew the country, 
 he thought he would be off, notwithstanding the waters. 
 
 This again, did not delight me; for what was to prevent him re- 
 turning, with some fellow-pedlars, or fellow-thieves, to labour in 
 their vocation? Any way, there was dilemma, though in the end it 
 
300 BE CLIFFORD; 
 
 was settled that we should have supper first, and Handcock should 
 afterwards seek his fortune abroad, or stay within, as whim or the 
 weather decided. For myself, I postponed the question of going to 
 bed, which was to abide the event of circumstances 5 and, as my 
 mysterious friend did not choose to face the night abroad, and there 
 was no bed for him within doors, I passed two hours more in un- 
 certainty. 
 
 From this I was delivered by an incident, as unexpected by me, 
 as I dare say it will be by the reader. Our supper over, the woman 
 asked the pedlar to sing, to which he said he was not inclined, for 
 he had lost his spirits, though he knew not what was the matter 
 with him. They then asked for one of his merry stories, particularly 
 about the man who was hanged for breaking open his father's shop 
 to rob the till, and firing at his brother, who came to resist it. 
 
 For this, he said, he was still less in a humour : it was too shock- 
 ing 5 and he fell into a long reverie, which I watched with some 
 anxiety, for I really began to apprehend the worst of such a man, 
 and swore within myself that I would never make acquaintance 
 with a pedlar again. 
 
 In this state of things there had been a silence of several mi- 
 nutes, when Betsy, with a face of alarm, declared she heard some- 
 body opening the little garden gate which led to the house. Her 
 mother said it was only the wind, but the girl was right-, for we 
 presently heard footsteps, not of one, or even two men, but seem- 
 ingly those of a file of soldiers. 
 
 On hearing them, Handcock turned deadly pale, and exclaimed, 
 
 4 4 By G- this is for me," and he started up to try to escape, which 
 
 he did as far as the kitchen, the outer door of which was now beset, 
 as well as that of our room. There was violent knocking at both, 
 and the landlady, who, I must again do her the justice to say, pre- 
 served her presence of mind, asked firmly what was wanted. 
 
 "Nothing against yourself," answered a voice, "but we have a 
 warrant to search your house 5 so open the door, or we must break 
 it open." 
 
 "You need not do that," said the landlady. " There— you may 
 enter, but do not ill-use us." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said the man who had spoken before, " pro- 
 vided you deliver up Handcock, the pedlar, who we know harbours 
 here, and whom we have a warrant to arrest! " 
 
 Saying this, he and four myrmidons began the search, eyeing 
 me with a curiosity I by no means liked. 
 
 " That's not he, Hoskyns," said the constable, looking at the 
 warrant 5 " why, everybody knows George Handcock, the pedlar." 
 
 At this moment Handcock, in despair, made a rush from the 
 kitchen, and endeavoured to force through the parlour, but was in- 
 tercepted by the stout constable, who, aided by his followers, soon 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 301 
 
 subdued, handcuffed, and carried him to a cart which waited for 
 them at the garden gate. The constable, however, came back and 
 demanded his pack, which might contain, he said, much inform- 
 ation ; and then, upon my inquiring the crime of which Handcock 
 was accused, he for the first time told us, it was for having, with 
 others, broken open and robbed the Wallingford Bank. 
 
 The grief and astonishment of his female friends was seemingly 
 as sincere, as it certainly appeared great, and I entirely abandoned 
 the uncharitable thoughts which, though faintly, and but for a mo- 
 ment, I had entertained of them. The cool-headed Mrs. Snow con- 
 tented herself with saying, "Who would have thought it ! God only 
 knows our hearts ! " But poor Betsy went into violent hysterics, 
 which lasted long 5 and on recovering from them- her mother put 
 her to bed. 
 
 All thought of my own rest was now at an end. I began to think 
 the house I was in ill-fated, and wished to quit it as soon as pos- 
 sible. Indeed, I was not without tremors in regard to myself, for 
 the description of my person, black stock and knapsack, in the Hue- 
 and-Cry, ran in my head in a manner any thing but pleasant. I 
 scarcely, therefore, waited for the dappled dawn, but paying my 
 bill, which was far more reasonable than that of the affronted Mr. 
 Chubb, I sallied forth from the West Country Barge and Eel-pie 
 House, to regain the high road to Reading 5 nor did I slacken my 
 pace, or feel thoroughly comfortable, till the pretty lowers and spires 
 of St. Giles, St, Mary, and St. Lawrence, rose to my view. 
 
 Such, and often so unfortunate, it is for a man, however inno- 
 cent, to fall, even unwittingly, into bad company. 
 
 The sight of the good town of Reading, and the proof my safety 
 gave me that I was not pursued, made me recover my spirits. In- 
 deed, as I was innocent, it would have been a shame not to have 
 done so, for all nature seemed to breathe happiness, not the less 
 because the beauty of the morning formed a glorious contrast to the 
 desolation of the preceding night. 
 
 This variety in the weather, which occurs so often in our variable 
 climate, almost atones for its imperfections \ for though sometimes 
 the sky frowns even to fearfulness, no one can answer how long it 
 may last. Sir William Temple, therefore, was right in resting his 
 defence of our weather, notwithstanding fogs, rain, and darkness, 
 upon the possibility of our passing some part of every day out of 
 doors. How different this from the unremitting heats and rains, and 
 interminable frosts, of many other parts of the world. 
 
 I particularly felt this when, remembering the havoc of the night 
 — the marks of which strewed my way for many a mile — I contrasted 
 it with the golden morning in which I now journeyed. With Ta- 
 mora I exclaimed, 
 
302 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 " The birds chaunt melody in every bush ; 
 The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun ; 
 The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, 
 And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground." 
 
 My fears of pedlar troubles being thus relieved, I never had a 
 happier walk, and called lustily for breakfast when shewn into the 
 gentlemen travellers' room at the notorious Berkshire sign of the 
 Black Bear. 
 
 Here, however, my tranquillity was again a little disturbed-, for 
 not only, for my sins, was this eternal Hue-and-Cry pasted upon a 
 board, hung up in the room, but I found all the gentlemen travel- 
 lers, waiters, and two or three attorney's clerks, who generally 
 breakfasted at Ihe house, occupied with the robbery at Wallingford, 
 and the arrest of Handcock, who was then actually under examina- 
 tion in the magistrates' chamber. 
 
 Had I known that my quondam friend was to have been moved 
 to Beading, it certainly would not have been the town I should have 
 breakfasted at that morning. However, I had no help for it, and 
 thought myself lucky, whether from pride or convenience, to have 
 taken my knapsack from my shoulders before I entered the place. 
 Putting on, therefore, an unconscious countenance, I sat down 
 quietly to my meal, and listened to the conversation. 
 
 The attorney's clerks were all very fluent and garrulous on the 
 subject, and I found had been informed that there was an accom- 
 plice of Handcock with him at the Eel-pie House when he was taken, 
 and they blamed the constable for not taking him into custody also, 
 especially as he, too, was a brother pedlar, if not a brother thief, 
 traced from the Jolly Angler at Thatcham, where he had shewn a 
 purse of gold, and treated the whole house, which shewed that the 
 gold could not have been honestly come by. 
 
 This, thought I, is acquiring a knowledge of the world with a 
 vengeance 5 and I became a little uneasy. Presently, however, my 
 ear caught the name of Firebrass. " Depend upon it, that re- 
 former," said one of the clerks, as he gulped down his tea, " is at 
 the bottom of this. How many robberies has he not instigated by his 
 rascally lectures." 
 
 " I don't agree with you, Styles," said a brother clerk. " What 
 you call rascally, I call enlightened 5 and robbery, as Firebrass says, 
 may not per se be a crime against the law of nature. All must de- 
 pend upon the circumstances of the case." 
 
 " And pray, Hopkins," replied Styles, " what justified the pedlar 
 for breaking open the Wallingford Bank ? " 
 
 " There you go again," returned Hopkins. " How do we know 
 that he broke open the bank ? The poor man is only now under 
 examination, and yet you have already found him guilty, and, no 
 doubt, hanged him in your own mind, because he is a poor pedlar, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 303 
 
 Had he been the rich mayor, who shot the man last week for merely 
 coming in at his window, and it was found justifiable homicide, he 
 would, by you, be at once acquitted. See what it is lobe a damned 
 Tory ! " 
 
 "And you," replied Styles, "would let every robber go free, 
 provided the person he robbed had a title, or was richer than him- 
 self. See what it is to be a damned Whig ! " 
 
 "Let's ask Mr. Jellybrand,"said Hopkins, "what he thinks of the 
 question." 
 
 " I know no more what the question is," said a staid and sen- 
 sible-looking person, " than you seem to do yourselves ; but if you 
 ask me my opinion of you two, I think you are a couple of block- 
 heads." 
 
 At this the gentlemen travellers, or as, near London, they are 
 called, the commercial gentlemen, laughed heartily, in which I 
 could not help joining, though unwilling to bring myself into no- 
 tice, especially among lawyers. 
 
 Another man of law, however, now came in, straight from the 
 magistrates' chamber, and told us that Handcock had implicated 
 JDr. Firebrass, the lecturer on political economy, in the robbery at 
 Wallingford. 
 
 " Thai's the best news I have heard yet," cried Styles 5 " I hope 
 it's true." 
 
 " I hope not," said Hopkins. " But Firebrass is too prudent a 
 man, even if he was not too high principled, to commit a robbery." 
 
 " But he may instigate others," responded Styles, " which is quite 
 as bad." 
 
 " What was the case?" asked Jellybrand, who seemed to have 
 much weight with the young men, being, as I was afterwards told, 
 the managing clerk of their master. 
 
 " This," said the new-comer. " A written paper was found in 
 Handcock's pack, signed by Firebrass, whose hand-writing was 
 proved, which ran thus 6 Being applied to for my opinion, 
 whether it is lawful for a destitute man, or one of inferior condition, 
 to help himself out of the superfluities of another superior to him- 
 self, I hold, from undeniable truths of the law of nature and the 
 equality of mankind, that he may so act, if he pleases, and thinks 
 it expedient, without being guilty of a crime. But of the expe- 
 diency, he himself, and he only, is to judge.'" 
 
 " A very convenient doctrine,'' said Jellybrand, " and likely to 
 do a great deal of good. No wonder the doctor has established a 
 sect, which daily spreads, and has such disciples as Hopkins. But 
 how does this implicate him in the robbery at the bank?" 
 
 "Aye ; make out that if you can," said Hopkins. " Depend upon 
 it, the law cannot reach him." 
 
 " It has at least excited suspicion," said he from the court, whose 
 
304 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ] 
 
 name I found was Catchpole; " for Handcock being asked, who 
 had required this opinion from the doctor, and how he came by it, 
 first prevaricated, and then refused to answer ; so he is remanded, 
 and Firebrass is ordered to attend. Moreover, fifty pounds of the 
 bank paper were also found in his pack, which he said he had taken 
 in the way of his trade." 
 
 " And why not? " asked Hopkins. " If he or Firebrass are con- 
 victed, they will die martyrs to the tyranny of the laws." 
 
 " They both deserve to be hanged/' said Styles. 
 
 "I should tell you, however," proceeded Catchpole, " that the 
 person who was with Handcock when he was arrested is also to be 
 apprehended, if he can be found ; for though Handcock did not 
 know his name, he let out that he was acquainted with Firebrass, and 
 was proceeding hither on purpose to attend his lectures." 
 
 This completely decided my plan of proceeding, and altered my 
 design of remaining a day or two at Reading, which I found was no 
 place for me. As soon, therefore, as the lawyers had paid for their 
 breakfasts and retired, I did the same ; for I waited their retreat, 
 not liking to shew my knapsack to people who studied the Hue-and- 
 Cry. When gone, however, I took it off the peg on which I had 
 hung it, and, in order to avoid danger, resolved to make it part 
 company with my shoulders for a time, and proceed per coach, if 
 I could find one, to the next town I meant to visit. This was about 
 seven miles off, and I luckily succeeded, as what was called the 
 Forest coach was just setting off. Bidding, therefore, adieu to Read- 
 ing almost before I had seen it, I took the road to Oakingham, in 
 Windsor Forest. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIIL 
 
 I FALL IN WITH ANOTHER LANDLORD, VERY DIFFERENT FROM HIM OF THE JOLLY ANGLER. 
 
 My crown is in my heart, not on my head, 
 Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones, 
 Nor to be seen; my crown is call'd content, 
 Siiakspeare.— Henry VL 
 
 Are you a courtier an't like you 
 
 Winter's Tale. 
 
 Windsor forest ! Ah ! dear and delightful region ! seat of my 
 youth, and always of happiness ! where I have wandered, careless 
 of restraint, a votary of nature, through paths, and fields, and woods, 
 literally strewed with flowers! Where, "under the shade of wot 
 melancholy boughs," I have lost, but not neglected " the creeping 
 hours of time ! " Ah! blissful retreat, where in delicious solitude 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 305 
 
 (to me delicious from being satiated with crowds) I have wooed 
 and found the not unwilling Muse, who gave me gifts, which far 
 
 " Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind ! " 
 
 Ever didst thou soothe and restore my mind to health, when 
 scorched by ambition, or plunged too deeply in reckless pleasure. 
 
 Yes ! beautiful forest! haunt of retired study and holy contem- 
 plation, it was thou who first taught me there were things even in 
 this world more to be coveted than the gifts of fortune or the fasci- 
 nations of power. 
 
 I hail thee, therefore, with joy ! hail this reminiscence of my first 
 acquaintance with thee, which this epoch of my life now presents ! 
 
 To quit this flight, and go on with my narration in plain prose, 
 I was set down by the coach at the Royal Oak, a favourite sign of 
 mine, notwithstanding the profligacy of the prince who endowed it 
 with that title. 
 
 Am I right or wrong in thinking that, in a journey like mine, 
 which may be truly called "sentimental," pleasure, or its reverse, 
 may in some sort be kindled by the associations thrown about the 
 signs of the. houses where we stop ? Thus, the Royal Oak, for its 
 aristocratic character 5 the White Hart, for its elegance *, the Talbot, 
 for the notions it gives of courage and fidelity 5 the Rose and Crown, 
 for its historical interests,- the Hare and Hounds, for its sporting 
 recollections ; the Green Man, or Robin Hood, for the romance of 
 archery : all these for a moment inspire you— at least they inspire 
 me — with a pleasing dream. While the Bull's Head, the Bear, the 
 Pack Horse, the Windmill, the Punch Bowl, or the Rummer, in- 
 volve one's thoughts in nothing but coarseness. I have carried this 
 feeling so far as to expect to see the landlords, and even the waiters 
 and chambermaids, in some measure, by their appearance and 
 manners, accord with their signs. In this I have been disappointed 
 so venture not to recommend it. 
 
 Yet in this instance my system told, for the landlord of the Royal 
 Oak was highly aristocratic, and, in compliment to his sign, I found 
 more than one copy of Boscobel or the escape of Charles II, on the 
 tables of the house. He talked, too, with the affection and respect 
 he deserved, of George the Third, whom he honoured for many 
 virtues, but particularly for his love of hunting, and encouraging 
 Ascot races. He therefore had his picture in every room, together 
 with that of Lord Hinchingbroke, the then Master of the Buckhounds, 
 and sundry of the best race-horses, some alone and quiet, some 
 running with others. In short, it was evident that, if not a jockey, 
 he had all the esprit de corps of the stable about him. In fact, I 
 found I was in the middle of the Ring's hunt, which, with the neigh- 
 bourhood of Ascot, infused into the atmosphere an air of politeness 
 and loyalty greater than ever I had yet met with. 
 
 1. 20 
 
306 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 This, and the good treatment of the host, who did not disdain coach 
 passengers, whatever he might do by pedestrians and pedlars, put 
 me at ease, and the delightful pastoral appearance of the surround- 
 ing country, set off by the beauty of the season, made me resolve 
 to dedicate a few days to the study of what was 
 
 " At once the Muses' and the monarch's seats." 
 
 Could I think of Pope, and be in the neighbourhood of his cradle 
 at Binfleld, where 
 
 " He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came," 
 
 and not take a walk to see it before dinner? My landlord, who was 
 the cicerone of this classical region, and a great admirer of Pope, 
 whenever he had an interval of leisure from his duties in the cella- 
 rage or the stable to read him, recommended it, and shewed me 
 the road, in his way to 44 Squire Neville s, 1 ' as he called him, of 
 Billingbere, in whose service he had been bred, as he said, from a 
 boy, and who had helped his promotion to be landlord of the Royal 
 Oak. 
 
 On the road, which passed through the most beautiful woodland 
 scenery I had ever beheld, we had a conversation that might be 
 called refined, for a brewer of ale and vendor of mutton chops. 
 
 "Quite a genius, that Mr. Pope," observed the landlord, as we 
 set out. 
 
 "Quite," echoed I. 
 
 4 4 Yet they say he was a queer man to look at — twisted a hundred 
 different ways ; though this, to be sure, has nothing to do with 
 larning. Tis the head-piece as does all." 
 
 44 Quite right again," said I. 
 
 44 Now I," continued the landlord, whose name was Gayford, 
 44 may say without vanity, I hope, that I am a far properer man to 
 look at than Mr. Pope was, for I am six feet high, and can lift a 
 sack of malt ; and yet if I was to scratch my head from year's end 
 to year's end, as he seems by his portrait to be always a doing, I 
 could never make one of them verses, which, as I have heard tell, 
 he could make when he was quite a little boy. La! Sir, what a 
 pretty thing all that is about Loddon being once a nymph, but 
 turned into a river. I know it's all what the poets call an invention 5 
 for I have gone over Loddon bridge a thousand limes, and such a 
 thought never came into my head, till Mr. Pope put it there V 
 
 ' ° She said, and melting as in tears she lay, 
 In a soft silver stream dissolved away, 
 The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps, 
 For ever murmurs and for ever weeps, 
 Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore, 
 And bathes the forest where she ranged beforeV' 
 
 Windsor Forest, 
 
Oil, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 307 
 
 "Do you think," said I, "then, that scratching the head has 
 any thing to do with poetry ?" 
 
 "Yes, sure, and a great deal too 5 and that's the reason why 
 Mr. Pope's picture is always drawn as if he was scratching his, 
 under his velvet cap." 
 
 I laughed outright. 
 
 "However," added Mr. Gayford, "that's all as God pleases. 
 One is made for one thing, and one for another ; one's for books, 
 t'other for plough : what Mr. Pope had better than me in mind, I 
 have better than him in body ; and so it is all providence, and makes 
 us all come round again." 
 
 I was quite charmed with this sermon of my friend of the Royal 
 Oak, and told him so. 
 
 "Why its nothing," said he, " but common sense after all. For 
 if I was to fret myself because I was not a poet, or a master of the 
 buckhounds, like Lord Hinchingbroke, instead of keeping comfort- 
 able at the Royal Oak, I might go and be laughed at all day that's 
 what I should deserve for my pains, and all I should get for my 
 fretting. God never intended all of us to be lords." 
 
 " Or masters of the buckhounds," said I, which seemed to come 
 quite home to mine host's comprehension. 
 
 I now began to be more and more pleased with him, and com- 
 plimented him on his contented disposition. 
 
 "Why you see," observed he, "content is neither here nor 
 there particularly, but every where if we pleased — that's my 
 maxim. To be sure it is more here, than here," Claying his hand 
 first upon his stomach, and then upon his head). " If the belly has 
 enough, and I wear a good coat (here he drew a coat of substantial 
 second cloth close round him)— if I have no need of doctor's stuff, 
 pay every man his own, and the tap of the Royal Oak keeps going, 
 why should I envy any man ? I say, if the King ( God bless him for 
 a gentleman, every inch of him, who made me a yeoman pricker, 
 and loves a good hunt, as well as Squire Neville , of Billingbere ) 
 — if he does not sleep belter, though he lies softer than 1 do, why 
 should I complain that I am not a king? " 
 
 " Why indeed?" said I ; " but pray, what is a yeoman pricker?" 
 
 "Why, don't you know that? It is a sign you are not of the 
 forest. Yet if I were to tell you, perhaps you would not understand it." 
 
 " Very likely ; but what is it ? " 
 
 "Why, it is one that helps in the hunt, and the forest, and is 
 about his Majesty ; and there is a good deal to do in the riding 
 way ; but then that is a pleasure, particularly when we have a 
 good horse kept for us. I believe you have not seen the Royal 
 George ? " 
 
 "What, the ship?" 
 
 " Ship! No. What should ships have to do with the forest? It 
 
°>08 BE CLIFFORD; 
 
 is my hunter, I mean— him that I hunt with his Majesty, when I 
 attends him at the races. I suppose you have been at the races ? " 
 "Not I." 
 
 "What, not at Ascot?" 
 " No." 
 
 " Whew ! How little of the world you must know. But you are 
 young. Never saw the King, perhaps ?" 
 "Never." 
 
 " Well, then, you have a deal to larn. It's quite beautiful to see 
 him and the queen, and ride a'ter them and the young princes, at 
 the races, or with the hounds; and that's what's being a yeoman 
 pricker, and gives knowledge of the world." 
 
 " That's what I am travelling for," observed I, willing to humour 
 him, " and I shall be glad to take a lesson of you." 
 
 He touched his jockey cap (for a yeoman pricker disdains a hat), 
 but added at the same time, "I got a deal of envy about in the 
 town, yet I don't give myself no airs ; only it is a pleasant thing to 
 belong to the court, you know. God bless Lord Hinchingbroke 
 for it." 
 
 " It was he then who made you a yeoman pricker ? " 
 
 "To be sure it was. A great man is that Lord Hinchingbroke." 
 
 "No doubt," said I. 
 
 " Rides and understands a horse well, and is not above speaking 
 to a man below him. That's your true great man. Now there is a 
 little fat cloth-merchant of Reading, who, because he has got a box 
 here in the forest, though he knows no more how to ride than a 
 tailor, thinks himself too good to speak to a yeomart pricker when he 
 meets him. That's what I call true vulgar." 
 
 " You are right in every thing, I find," replied I. " But pray, 
 how far are we from Binfield? " 
 
 "Oh! not above a furlong; and if you will take over that stile 
 there, through Asher's Wood, it will open upon you as you get out 
 of it, all at once ; and anybody will shew you the way to Mr. Pope's. 
 My business lies this way, through Squire Neville's park." * 
 
 So, saying, he turned off, and left me to find out Binfield, which 
 I soon managed. 
 
 And open upon me it did ; the most lovely village in the king- 
 dom, perhaps in the world ; a union of all that was pastoral and all 
 that was elegant. The beautiful fields, full of enchanting verdure, 
 and covered with flocks, made it appear the one 5 and the number of 
 * ornamented cottages, with now and then a considerable mansion 
 among them, gave it the air of the other. 
 
 The owners of most of these were persons of rank connected with 
 the court at Windsor, the polish of which seemed to be shed over 
 their pleasant domiciles, in the high keeping of the lawns and gar- 
 dens that belonged to them. I felt myself immediately in a politer 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 309 
 
 air 5 fancied that I was in a sort of Arcadia, and looked for queens and 
 nobles in the disguise of shepherdesses and shepherds. 
 
 Possibly this was the rather occasioned by a very handsome bevy 
 of well-dressed women, accompanied by several well-appointed 
 men, who, issuing from the park-gate of Billingbere, shewed how 
 dignified a region I had got into, in comparison with that I had 
 left. The parly seemed to revel in the rural pleasures that courted 
 them, and trode the greensward or roved among the woods as if 
 they had never been acquainted with any thing but the simplicity 
 of a country life. Yet the natural ease, and imposing air of supe- 
 riority, which always distinguish the high-born and well-bred, 
 contrasted themselves here very powerfully with the rough exterior 
 and manners which, for the last days, had engaged me, and I could 
 not help secretly exclaiming, 
 
 "Stay, gentle swains, for though in this disguise, 
 I see bright honour sparkle in your eyes. 
 Of famous Arcady ye are V 
 
 In short, though I was always a lover of nature, and preferred it 
 to the most exquisite attainments of art, yet the elegance of fashion 
 had also an attraction for me, which, for one who had seen so little 
 of it, was almost unaccountable. 
 
 But here too, perhaps, was an appeal to my prejudices regarding 
 the old Norman nobility, for a reason which the reader will easily 
 comprehend. The party I saw, from the name of the lord of the 
 park whence they emerged, were, I concluded, most of them Ne- 
 villes, and I hailed in them the descendants of the Cantilupes, Hast- 
 ingses, and Beauchamps, and (I am afraid, with less charity) that 
 Earl of Westmoreland who, in Guallree Forest, by a mostunknightly 
 stratagem, ruined the last noble of the house of Bardolfe. 
 
 How different were these in their appearance, dress, and man- 
 ners, from the men and women of those times — those iron men, 
 and those stiff, starched women, who gave little movement to the 
 genial current of the soul in their intercourse with one another. They 
 were conversing with the easy cheerfulness and polite gaiety of 
 their rank and education, and seemed to enjoy the scene around 
 with unfeigned delight 5 giving me, in this, the first impression of 
 an opinion which never afterwards left me, that there is not a more 
 happy position for a person of any mind to be placed in, than to 
 meet the polish of the world in the seclusion of retirement. 
 
 Are we to lament this change of manners, which the advance of 
 civilization has brought along with it, or regret that the frowns of 
 the feudal, and perhaps roystering Baron of Billingbere, of the days 
 of Elizabeth, have been exchanged for the soft accomplishments 
 and kindly smile of his well-bred descendants? — No. 
 
 1 Milton's Arcades. 
 
310 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 I watched the party which had so struck me, till they were out 
 of sight, perhaps secretly wishing I could be one of them, and 
 thought, I am afraid, too much and too tenderly of the place and 
 of the person who first made me acquainted with the fascinations of 
 female elegance. "But of this, no more," cried I, and I paced it 
 vigorously. "My object is man, not woman, except as a part of man." 
 
 Yet I wished that I had not seen these Nevilles, who, by their 
 polish and ease, put me uncomfortably in mind that they, as well 
 as somebody else, were in a sphere to which I did not, and per- 
 haps never could, belong. I recovered myself, however, after they 
 had for some time disappeared, and found out a secret — the know- 
 ledge of which expanded the more I lived in the world — that when 
 one is under temptation, separation from the tempting object is a 
 more certain and effectual cure, than all that the strongest reason 
 can supply. To be sure, the remedy is a little cowardly 5 — but who 
 does not know that discretion is the better part of valour? 
 
 The graceful and attractive appearance of the Nevilles put me 
 too much in mind of another of the same sphere as theirs, and of 
 my own inferiority to both. While present, this continued, and 
 annoyed me ; gone a quarter of an hour, and the lovely face of 
 nature, which I was born to enjoy as well as they, restored me. I 
 thought loo of my landlord of the Royal Oak, the born philosopher 
 of content, and blushed. The sight of Pope's house completed my 
 recovery. 
 
 It was a low-built fabric of dark brown brick, covered in parts 
 with most redundant ivy, which climbed the very chimneys. The 
 windows were partly casements, partly sashed, and, upon the whole, 
 it had a picturesque air. 
 
 The interior had nothing very particular to interest one, except 
 a picture, tolerably painted, of what Lord Chesterfield calls "that 
 poor, crazy, deformed body, a mere Pandora's box, containing all 
 she physical ills that ever afflicted humanity." It prompted reflec- 
 tions, however, of serious import to religious philosophy; for if 
 such a mind could be left untouched and unaffected in such a 
 body, how different from body must mind be, and how independent 
 ofit! 
 
 A little closet, some six feet square, with a sort of bookcase of 
 two shelves, which had been Pope's own, looked through a case- 
 ment into a garden, which bordered three sides of the house, and 
 which I next visited. It seemed, however, dedicated to Pomona 
 rather than Flora, for by far the greater proportion was absorbed by 
 culinary herbs and fruit trees, a few sun-flowers and peonies being 
 the chief of the ornamental tribe. Nevertheless, there was an air of 
 content about it; and the housekeeper, a most neat and reverend 
 lady, who shewed me the place, seemed to have ail due respect for 
 an arbour, and the identical bench and slate table within it, where 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 311 
 
 she said the great poet, when he was only a little master, composed 
 those beautiful pastorals, of which she supposed I had heard. 
 
 She then opened a drawer in Ihe table, and displayed a copy of 
 the original edition of them, for which she said her master would 
 not take twenty pounds, as it was signed in his own hand-writing, 
 by his name, Alexander Pope. 
 
 I honoured this classical zeal in her master, and asked who he 
 was. She answered, Arthur Loveday, Esq., of Reading, a gentle- 
 man stricken in years, who had known Mr. Pope, and himself had 
 made verses too, though not so good, she supposed, as Mr. Pope's, 
 who began so early. 
 
 "Why they do say," she observed, "that he were but twelve 
 years old when he wrote them lines." 
 
 And she pointed to a tablet which I had not noticed, and which 
 her master, Mr. Loveday, had fixed up over the bench in the alcove 
 where the poet sat when he composed. 
 
 They were those charming little stanzas on solitude (charming, 
 with one exception), which had been my favourites, when, at, his 
 own age, I first read them, and I have continued to love them ever 
 since 5 not the less for the knowledge I have since had of things far 
 different. 
 
 " Happy the man whose wish and care 
 A few paternal acres bound, 
 Content to breathe his native air 
 
 In his own ground. 
 
 '* Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread , 
 Whose flocks supply him with attire, 
 Whose trees in summer yield him shade, 
 In winter fire. 
 
 " Blest who can unconcern'dly find 
 Hours, days, and years slide soft away, 
 In health of body, peace of mind, 
 Quiet by day, 
 
 " Sound sleep by night; study and ease 
 Together mix'd ; sweet recreation ; 
 And innocence, which most does please, 
 With meditation. 
 
 " Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, 
 Thus unlamented let me die, 
 Steal from the world, and not a stone 
 Tell where I lie." 
 
 Delighted to find these favourite lines in the very spot where they 
 were composed, I read them aloud, and with such unction, that my 
 conductress looked quite pleased, and said how pleased Muster 
 Loveday would be to hear me. 
 
 " And yet, to my fancy," added she, " though some be pretty, 
 some be not. I can t say as I should like to die and nobody care for 
 
312 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 me; or if they did, to have no tombstone for them to find me out." 
 
 I quite agreed with this observation upon a wish and a sentiment 
 which I think a drawback upon the philosophy of these otherwise 
 philosophic lines; and the lady agreed with me in thinking all the 
 rest worthy the golden age. In fact, they gave me a fit of mus- 
 ing on the vanity of the pursuit of riches or the applause of the 
 world. Is not content, thought I, the object of all our exertions? 
 and if this can be obtained without struggle, why should we plunge 
 into it? And I repeated with still greater emphasis— - 
 
 " Blest who can unconcern'dly find 
 Hours, days, and years slide soft away." 
 
 To this I added the silliness of supposing happiness more en- 
 joyed by the great and fashionable than the lowly-born 5 and this 
 musing lasted all the way back to the Royal Oak, where I was not 
 sorry to join my contented friend, landlord, and yeoman-pricker, 
 in making a deep inroad into a fine round of beef, which contented 
 me thoroughly, in appeasing the want then uppermost about me. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 OF THE GOOD COMPANY WITH WHOM I DINED AT THE ROYAL OAK, AND THE NOTABLE 
 CONVERSATION I THERE HEARD.— EVENT OF THE TRIALS OF DR. FIREBRASS AND 
 THE PEDLAR, AND THE FINAL FATE OF THOSE PERSONAGES. 
 
 A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true to one another. 
 
 Shakspeare.— l Henry IV. 
 
 Our dinner, at which the landlord presided, sitting under a pic- 
 ture of George III., was, on this occasion, not in the kitchen, but 
 a very decent room 5 in fact, a sort of ordinary. 
 
 Now, an ordinary is the very thing for a young gentleman who 
 wishes to see the world. Certainly, with (his view, it is better than 
 the eastern magnificence of eating alone 5 or, the next thing to it, 
 a college hall, where you see the same hundred-times-seen phizzes, 
 and listen, or pretend to listen, to the same hundred-limes-told tales. 
 
 In a country town like Oakingham, an ordinary is peculiarly 
 advantageous to a curious traveller, because not only other travel- 
 lers congregate there, but the notables of the place often drop in, 
 and, at a fixed price, sit down to a plentiful and wholesome repast. 
 Our contented landlord charged but eighleen-pence a head for his 
 excellent viands, leaving his guests to settle the quantity, and there- 
 fore the expense of their liquor. This naturally attracted many of 
 the townspeople to him, especially those who had no wives to at- 
 tract them at home, and some who had. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 313 
 
 On this day the meeting was unusually full. At its head were Mr. 
 Sincox, the attorney, Mr. Smellome, the apothecary, and Mr. Sad- 
 wright, the bailiff of the place (for there was no mayor) — all top- 
 ping men. These were all of the aristocracy of the town. 
 
 In a somwhat lower degree was a Mr. Smooth, a Dissenting 
 schoolmaster of very extreme principles, it was said, in all matters 
 of government and legal rights, though he seldom spoke to the full 
 extent of his opinions, and always in very submissive, oily language 5 
 so that the vicar applied to him the text, — " His words were softer 
 than butter, having war in his heart." He had been a great favourer 
 of the American cause (when at its height), and had been known 
 to have declared, he thought it was a just one; nay, had illumi- 
 nated his house on the acquittal of admiral Keppel; — all which got 
 him little respect in the loyal town of Oakingham, and accounted 
 for some cold looks even now on the part of his neighbours. 
 
 The landlord paid these guests of his all honour due, by assigning 
 them the high places at the table : and having gathered from me 
 that I belonged to Maudlin College, Oxford, after introducing me 
 in form, ranged me among them. Nor did my jacket of many 
 pockets prejudice me in the eyes of the inferioris ordinis com- 
 mensales, who supposed I must be a man of some distinction, 
 or I would not be so careless of forms as to sit down to (able in a 
 shooting dress. 
 
 The business of our dinner was not interrupted by any general 
 conversation, but each seemed intent upon his immediate concern 
 — the plate before him ; compliments to the landlord, on the good- 
 ness of his beef, being the chief topic. 
 
 At length, however, one of the guests, a traveller who had just 
 come in from Reading, excited the attention of us all, but mine in 
 particular, by the never-ending story of the robbery at Wallingford, 
 and the supposed culprits concerned in it. This was faintly can- 
 vassed at its commencement 5 but as plates were emptied, and hunger 
 satisfied, the tale of the traveller was eagerly listened to, and his 
 relation discussed in a critical examination of its facts, varying ac- 
 cording to the varying opinions and capacities of those who sat in 
 judgment upon them. 
 
 My own curiosity was interested by the new fact, that Dr. Fire- 
 brass had been examined by a full bench of magistrates, and com- 
 mitted, partly for refusing to answer, but also upon the information 
 of a third party, who had been apprehended that morning, and 
 turned what was called king's evidence upon the occasion. The 
 examinations had been taken in short-hand, printed, and spread 
 about the town, and the traveller having got a copy, produced it 
 upon the table after dinner. 
 
 From that it appeared that the informing accomplice was no other 
 than that blacksmith who, it may be recollected, had made the false 
 
314 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 key with which the accomplished Handcock had righted himself, 
 as he said, by rifling his master's pantry. This new actor in the 
 scene owned to an intimacy of near thirty years between the pedlar 
 and himself, and now came forward to swear away his life in order 
 to save his own. The account he gave was, that in his early youth 
 he had been guilty of peccadillos, such as robbing hen-roosts and 
 orchards, chiefly in company with the said Handcock 5 but of these 
 he had thorougly repented, and had even turned Methodist during 
 a long separation from his friend, till, after his return, he had been 
 again debauched by him into his old habits, and at length listened 
 to his proposal to rob the bank. 
 
 The plan was the pedlar's own, who, by virtue of his pack, had 
 got frequent admittance to the premises, and made himself master 
 of all the ways of the house, particularly the shop and its appurte- 
 nances. By these means they contrived to enter it, and by the 
 blacksmith's skill in picking locks, which was what made his instru- 
 mentality so necessary to his friend, they carried off their booty. 
 Previous, however, to this — the late serious habits of the blacksmith 
 having made him rather too conscientious— the superior-minded 
 Handcock had advised him to attend Firebrass's lectures, which 
 had entirely convinced him of the lawfulness of robbery, provided 
 it was of the rich, by the poor. It also proved to a demonstration, 
 that all laws preventing it, indeed all government whatever, except 
 that of nature, was nothing but a usurpation by the corrupt few 
 over the virtuous many. 
 
 He was not, indeed, quite satisfied by the lecture alone, so Hand- 
 cock drew up a case for him, to be submitted to Firebrass, who 
 gave the opinion upon it we have mentioned in a late chapter. 
 This determined the blacksmith 5 but the question still remained 
 as to the guilt of Firebrass in the transaction. 
 
 There were, as may be supposed, many opinions at the table, in 
 which the lawyer, of course, took the lead. 
 
 " There can be no doubt," said Mr. Simcox, " that he was a par- 
 ticeps, and certainly will be, or ought to be, hanged." 
 
 Ci With great submission, as becomes me," said Mr. Smooth, as 
 he finished a glass of ale, and bowing to the attorney, " the law 
 will not reach him- — neither ought it, since it was only an opinion 5 
 and I hope, bad as our laws are, nobody is to be hanged for an opi- 
 nion." 
 
 u And how, pray, friend Smooth," said Mr. Simcox, " can you 
 know any thing about the law?— you who pass your days in flog- 
 ging boys into Propria quae maribus, and as in proesenti" 
 
 At this there was a laugh at the schoolmaster's expense. 
 
 44 Yes! yes!" continued the pleased attorney, " you had better 
 stick to quae genus, for you will make no hand of your republican 
 notions here, I can tell you." . 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 315 
 
 Here there was another laugh. 
 
 "I humbly ask pardon," returned Smooth, u but I suppose an 
 Englishman may have an opinion ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the man of law; " but if the opinion excite a man 
 to commit a felony, I should not like to stand in his shoes." 
 
 "And yet, I humbly beg leave to ask," rejoined the schoolmaster, 
 " If Dr. Firebrass were to employ you to defend him, would not 
 you argue as I do?" 
 
 "That totally alters the case," replied the attorney; at which a 
 laugh was kindled against himself, which he did not seem to like, 
 especially as Mr. Smooth bowed and was quiet, as if satisfied that 
 he had gained a victory. 
 
 The attorney, however, rallied, and said he would put a case, 
 which was always the best way in a law argument. 
 
 " Suppose/' said he, U I was to walk into your school, call all 
 the boys about me, and say to 'em, ' Now, boys, though you be 
 scholars, and this is your master, you have no call to obey him if 
 he flogs too hard, and you don't like it.' What would you say to 
 that, my good Smooth?" 
 
 "0! that alters the case too," observed Smooth, in his turn, 
 which produced a greater laugh than that against the attorney, who 
 absolutely crowed, looking complacently round, and observing, "I 
 think I have settled him." 
 
 I have related this conversation, not from any particular interest 
 that belongs to it, but because afterwards, in much higher scenes, 
 I often saw, under very little more decency of manners, exactly 
 the same feelings displayed among persons reckoned first-rate as 
 to abilities, rank, and education, but who did not love one another. 
 So true it is, that it is the exterior only that makes the difference 
 between man and man \ 
 
 The rest of the conversation at the Ordinary having been all in 
 the same strain (and I have given a sufficient specimen of it), I will 
 content myself with stating its result. The traveller from Reading, 
 who brought the account of Firebrass, having sided with Smooth, 
 who was far from succumbing, the battle might have been a drawn 
 one-, but the apothecary and bailiff throwing their weight into the 
 scale of Mr. Simcox, that gentleman finally triumphed; and it was 
 
 1 Mr. Clifford here, perhaps, might have successfully transcribed from his master, 
 Fielding : — 
 
 " The great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and vanity to 
 themselves. These noble qualities flourish as notably in a country church, or church- 
 yard, as in the drawing-room, or the closet. Schemes have indeed been laid in the vestry, 
 which would hardly disgrace the Conclave. Here is a ministry ; and here an opposition ; 
 here are plots, parties, and factions, equal to those which are to be found in courts. 
 
 u Nor are the women here less practised in the highest feminine arts than their fair su- 
 periors in quality and fortune. Here are prudes and coquets, dressing and ogling, false- 
 hood, envy, malice, scandal ; in short, every thing which is common to the most splendid 
 assembly, or politest circle. "—Tow Jones. 
 
316 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 agreed by the majority, that the patriotic doctor deserved hanging 
 as much, if not more, than the blacksmith, or even Handcock 
 himself. 
 
 The subject was not pleasant to me, and that I may not revert 
 to it again, 1 may as well here relate the close of the story, for the 
 assizes were held within a fortnight of this time. At these Handcock 
 was tried, and exclusive of the evidence of his accomplice, the 
 notes of the bank found in his pack having been proved not to have 
 been issued on the night of the burglary, he was found guilty, and 
 executed for the felony ; and Mr. Smooth had the mortification of 
 hearing that the philosopher of the law of nature, being tried and 
 convicted of a gross misdemeanour for the opinion he had given, 
 and which it was proved had actually instigated the robbery, was 
 sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the gaol of Dorchester, 
 where he died of a fever, brought on by virtuous indignation — a 
 martyr to the tyranny of the laws and the ingratitude of his country. 
 
 Not the least affecting part of the history relates, however, to 
 the poor girl of the West Country Barge, all my fears for whom, 
 occasioned by her intimacy with the wretched Handcock, were 
 well founded. His flatteries had been too seductive ; she listened to 
 them with a result fatal to her innocence and peace; and his fate 
 so affected her, that a miscarriage caused her death within a month 
 after his execution. 
 
 1 When Le Sage wrote Gil Bias, how little did he contemplate 
 such a consequence from his fascinating work! 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 MORE TALES OF MY LANDLORD.' — I MEET WITH A LADY, WHO REMINDS ME TOO 
 MUCH OF ANOTHER. — CONVERSATION WITH A STRANGER, ON NATURE AND ART. — 
 THE LANDLORD'S ACCOUNT OF HIM. 
 
 One touch of nature makes the whole worid of kin. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling. 
 
 As You Like It. 
 
 The moated grange. At that place call upon me. 
 
 Measure for Measure. 
 
 I staid with my Oakingham landlord two days longer, pleased 
 with his temper and his conversation, both which, if not refined, 
 were instructive. He was full of observation, to which he was in- 
 clined by nature 5 but it had been much sharpened by his lot in life. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 317 
 
 from the opportunities it gave him of surveying, in his guests, the 
 different characters of men. His shrewd remarks, and the anecdotes 
 he told me of different travellers who used his house, first gave me 
 the idea that if a man wished to get acquainted with his fellow- 
 men, he could not do it better than in the shape of an innkeeper. 
 
 This impression was, in after-life, confirmed to me by the au- 
 thority of no less than the shrewd and observing Paley, a great 
 philosopher in that way $ who did not scruple to say, — in his broad 
 Cumberland dialect, which always added so much emphasis to the 
 sagacity of his remarks, — that if he wished to "stoody the warld, 
 it should be by keeping a pooblic-hoose by the waay saide." 
 
 My friend Gayford had not, perhaps, this motive when he set up 
 the Royal Oak 5 but becoming its landlord, he could not help indulg- 
 ing his vein, for which it gave such fine play. As he had, I know 
 not why (except that he found I liked to hear him talk), taken a 
 liking to me, we gossipped together frequently at the door of hi* 
 inn, on a bench which, in fine weather, invited many a passenger 
 to take a pint, and served commodiously fOi these conferences. 
 
 He naturally talked of the gentry whe used his house, in whom, 
 he observed, there were vast differences, to be sure, " which I 
 always, however," said he, iC could find out in the twinkle of an 
 eye. For I had not been an innkeeper twelve months, before I found 
 I could always discover real sterling from Brummagem : that is 
 to say, the real quality from them as apes them, and that, even 
 though the Brummagems be the richest. By-the-bye, here comes 
 one of them up the street 5 I know it by the scarlet and gold livery 
 of the outrider, which they have no more right to than I have, for 
 it belongs to the prince. But they are coming to change horses, so 
 I must be stirring." 
 
 At which, ringing loudly the ostler's bell, he prepared himself 
 for the most obsequious bows, which he gave plentifully to two 
 persons in rich travelling dresses in the inside of the carriage, when 
 it slopped. 
 
 They were a gentleman and lady ; the one a most meek and in- 
 significant-looking being, for a male creature ; the other a woman 
 of prodigious energy, who scolded both landlord and ostler with 
 vociferation, for having given them a horse that went lame, the last 
 time she changed— for I observed she did not say we. 
 
 The prudent Gayford bowed an excuse, which seemed a reason- 
 able one, for he said the horse was sound at starting, but picked up 
 a nail on the road, and had been, much to his loss, lame eyer since. 
 This, however, did not pacify the lady, nor apparently the gentle- 
 man, who, putting his little head under his wife's arm, so as to 
 reach the window, said, as loud as a very tremulous voice would 
 permit, " Indeed, Mr. Gayford, this was very bad usage, and Lady 
 Fitz-John and I take it very ill." 
 
318 DE CLIFFORD-, 
 
 Gayford had nothing for it but to bow again, and the carriage 
 drove off. 
 
 After he had looked after them till they were out of sight, sitting 
 down again, he observed, "Now that's a sample of what I was a- 
 saying. That's true Brummagem. It's well that that gentleman 
 was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, for ho never would have 
 got his meat else." 
 
 " Who are these Fitz-Johns?" asked I. . 
 
 " Who, indeed?" answered he. " They are no more Fitz-Johns 
 than you. And yet they are, too, for the king has given them leave; 
 but that's all. They don't come from no people of that name." 
 
 I asked how that was. 
 
 " I'll tell you," said he, " the father of Mr. Fitz-John— or, as we 
 must now call him, Sir John Fitz-John— was Ralph Johnson, gent., 
 for he never called himself esquire, and hadn't need, for he was 
 only a grazier, and drove to Smithfield Market ; though he left a 
 large fortune to this chap, who said I used him ill. The son was 
 always a poor creature, and so to take care of him he married that 
 lady, who was the daughter of a pawnbroker, and had a fortune 
 too. The two fortunes together made [hem exceeding rich, and so 
 as Mrs. Johnson was ashamed of her new name, though her own 
 was Figgins, she had it altered • and by some hocus pocus with the 
 heralds, which cost a deal of money, it was changed into Fitz-John ; 
 which, I understand, is quite the same name, only in another lan- 
 guage. Well, this even did not satisfy her ; so, he being in Parlia- 
 ment, they somehow got knighted, and she is now my lady, and 
 thinks herself a woman of fashion ; though I say she is nothing but 
 Brum-, for, as the saying is, I know a sheep's head from a carrot ; 
 and can tell real true fashion from counterfeit as soon as I see it. 
 I was not so long in Squire Neville's family for nothing. Those are 
 your true ladies." 
 
 I quite agreed to this-, observing, that " I believed I had seen 
 some of them the day before, in the way to Mr. Pope's." 
 
 "Nothing more likely," said Gayford, " for they often leave the 
 park for the woods, and run about, enjoying nature, like young 
 fawns, as they are. Ah! they are the true blood, which Mrs., or 
 Lady Fitz-John, if she had millions, never could be. But they were 
 not ail Nevilles as you saw. One of them was taller than the 
 rest; was not she?" 
 
 "I think so." 
 
 "Aye; she be a rare one, and a genuine, or, as I say, a real lady. 
 She is a viscountess." 
 "You know her, then?" 
 
 "Yes, by seeing her at Billingbere : they call her Lady Hunger- 
 ford." 
 
 I started ! for what did not that name recall? The summer-house ! 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 319 
 
 — the bust atFoljambe ! Alas ! I was not cured. The mere thought, 
 thus brought to my recollection, filled me with tremor, and I could 
 not listen to my landlord's further dissertation about fashion, which, 
 like Borachio, he seemed to think u a deformed thief." 
 
 One trait, however, I could not help remarking, as moving bis 
 wonder and laughter too; at which I was not surprised, for, in my 
 then ignorance of the London beau monde, it much moved mine. 
 It seems that he had gathered in the steward's room at BilSingbere, 
 an anecdote of a family of high pretensions to this famed distinction 
 of being fashionable, but of moderate fortune, so that they could 
 not go out of town at Easter, like the rest of the world. 
 
 "Would you believe it? 1 ' said he, " they closed all the front 
 windows of the house that looked upon the street, and lived a fort- 
 night in the back rooms, never stirring out, that it might be thought 
 they were in the country. Now their country was only the back 
 yard, and their country-house the back rooms ; and I ask you, Sir, 
 if my tapster (here, in his blue apron and sleeves (and not ashamed 
 of them), is not more respectable than such fashionables ?" 
 
 To this, without answering for Dick tapster's virtues except in his 
 capacity of a tapster, I assented. But the interest called up by the 
 mention of Lady Hungerford made my ear dull to the gossip of my 
 sagacious landlord 5 and though he would willingly have told me 
 many things he had observed among the great, I could not help 
 feeling a strange longing, without any motive but restlessness, to go 
 again to Binfield. Perhaps I may again see this superior lady, 
 thought I, about whom so many interesting associations are thrown. 
 
 I therefore started upon my legs when the arrival of another 
 carriage made my landlord do the same, and in about half an hour 
 had made my way through that beautiful Asher's Wood, now well 
 known to me, and found myself once more at the gate of the park 
 leading to Billingbere. 
 
 Here I began to calculate the chances of again seeing its elegant 
 inhabitants, and with them the friend of her whom I found I still 
 loved too well. They came not, and I wound through the beautiful 
 village, wandering I knew not where, till I came in close proximity 
 to one of the most picturesque country churches I had ever seen. 
 It was placed in a retired nook, for which it seemed made, and the 
 nook for it. Its lower, its porch, its ivy, and above all, its seclusion, 
 suiled my frame of mind. The air was in that sort of calm, that not 
 a leaf rustled, and the only sound which was heard, was now and 
 then of a rook cawing in an elm above, and a distant waterfall, which, 
 from the dryness of the summer, frequently stopt. 
 
 All seemed the palace of Silence, and I sat down on a moss-grown 
 tombstone, which covered the remains, it said, of one who had been 
 once beautiful and gay, but always innocent, a girl of sixteen. It 
 was erected, it added, by " the friend that loved her most in the 
 
320 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 world." Who was that friend? A father, perhaps ! Perchance a 
 lover ! Yes $ a lover ! and the body of Bertha, dead upon a bier, 
 lay stretched in imagination before my eyes, which moistened much 
 'ere I recovered myself. 
 
 What fools does imagination sometimes make of us ! My walk 
 certainly did not cure me. Except, however, for this little burst, 
 the musing into which the calm and sobriety, of the scene threw 
 me was any thing but unhappy : for though serious, the reflections 
 always prompted by the sight of a church, and particularly of a 
 country church, are never sad 5 they separate one from this world, 
 but they bring one to a better. Here, also, the sight of the old 
 clock, and its large dial, surmounted with a most quaint figure of 
 Time, would have forced me, had I not before been disposed to it, 
 to think of the vanity of human wishes. 
 
 In this situation and this mood I continued, in a sort of day- 
 dream, for full half an hour, when I was awakened by the sound 
 of female voices, one of which said, " This will be the best view of 
 it." I looked up, and what were my sensations when I beheld the 
 ladies I had almost expressly come in search of— the Nevilles and 
 their distinguished guest! 
 
 Distinguished she was, both in her mien and features; both 
 shewing the most beautiful sample of la haute noblesse. But the 
 features I especially studied, in the minute glance I had of her 
 without interruption 5 for I wished to compare them with those of 
 the exquisite marble representation of them I had seen in Bertha's 
 summer-house, every trait of which I remembered as if but an hour 
 before, for Bertha's sake. She seemed, however, a few years older 
 than the bust, and several than Bertha herself, nevertheless, fitted 
 by her exquisite manner and most speaking countenance to be the 
 preferred and admired friend of Miss Hastings— perhaps, thought 
 I (and it then first occurred to me), la chere maman, of the French 
 letter. , 
 
 A yew tree intervening, gave me the opportunity of making these 
 observations; but the change of position in the ladies brought me 
 to sight, and I was too naturally well-bred to continue where I was, 
 as it seemed an intrusion upon their privacy and occupation ; for I 
 found they were all sketching 5 and the intelligent features of Lady 
 Hungerford were particularly lighted up by her employment. 
 
 How attractive is real refinement, as well as real simplicity ! All 
 my life long have I been endeavouring to decide which to prefer, 
 but in vain. 
 
 Here, at all events, refinement carried it, because it was pre- 
 sent; but ah ! how my memory lingered upon her who always pre- 
 sented so lovely a union of both. 
 
 Well, I would have given the world to have told Lady Hunger- 
 ford that I knew her, that I had seen her before, that I knew her 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 321 
 
 friend, and thatf I loved her for that friend's sake. Such was my 
 fancy's wish ; but O ! the disappointing reality ! as I turned my 
 eyes upon my own inferiority, I despaired of ever knowing her, as 
 of ever again seeing her friend. In short, I slunk away, almost like 
 a criminal found in a suspicious place. 
 
 Out of sight my buoyancy returned, in a walk which, in all the 
 same quiet beauty, extended itself far beyond Binfield, till I disco- 
 vered the Thames at a distance, streaming through the landscape 
 like silver. I then turned back, and came round again to the same 
 retired church which had excited so much interest. 
 
 In my way my attention was arrested by a gentleman's mansion, 
 which seemed the very emblem of the most perfect tranquillity, 
 and independence of all exterior considerations, which man would 
 desire. It was one of those places which, if a traveller came to, he 
 would stop to look at, and meditate on its happy privacy. Perhaps, 
 having passed, he would turn back to look at it again, and then 
 would give a rein to his fancy 5 would conjure up a thousand dreams 
 of the pursuits and characters of its inhabitants, or what effect, if he 
 possessed it, it might have upon his own. If houseless, and his for- 
 tune to seek, as I had, the interest would be increased by contrast, 
 and how would he not wish to be the possessor of just such a re- 
 sidence ! 
 
 This was not the first time I had felt thus, and it always made a 
 sort of epoch in the day's journey, sweeter for the occurrence. 
 
 As to the house itself, it seemed one of the private houses of Inigo 
 Jones 5 plain, but commodious, and of handsome proportions; and, 
 what did not take from its interest, it was surrounded by a moat. 
 
 When I returned, as I said, to the church-yard, the ladies I left 
 there were gone, but the spot was not deserted. In lieu of the 
 ladies, a single person, of good mien, and well, though plainly 
 dressed — in short, with the air of a gentleman, and intelligent 
 withal— seemed to be examining (and that with pleasure), the at- 
 tractive simplicity of the sacred fabric. He went round it and round 
 it, stopping at intervals to indulge his gaze upon particular parts. 
 There was great affability, as well as feeling, in his countenance, and 
 being far beyond the meridian of life, which seemed to give him a 
 privilege, and seeing that I was also surveying the whole spot with 
 interest, he addressed me, saying, as he touched his hat, 
 
 u You seem pleased, sir, and I always like to see men of your 
 age pleased with such objects as these." 
 
 I observed, in answer, that even without the help of Gray, I al- 
 ways thought a country church and church-yard one of the most 
 pleasing sights we could behold. They touched the heart as well as 
 the eye. 
 
 u I honour the sentiment, sir," replied the stranger, "it is this 
 mixture of heart with the senses which gives to nature, and art too, 
 1. 21 
 
322 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 their best attractions. The simple beauty of this church, and the 
 perfect quiet of its precincts, are the cause of an almost daily visit 
 which I make to them 5 so that I could envy Dr. W— * — his par- 
 sonage there, who has it hourly before his eyes." 
 " It is, indeed, close/' said I. 
 
 "Some people say too close," replied he; "but I don't agree 
 with them (though they are persons of taste), if only for the reason 
 you gave just now — for the sentiment it inspires. For unless you 
 can apply to such proximity the old adage, 6 the nearer the church 
 the farther from God,' I will not quarrel with it. You will observe, 
 too, that as a mere matter of taste, distinct from all notions of piety, 
 it is a very pleasing object : its windows of the truest golhic, and 
 its towers and ivy-clothed battlements, — which our modern Wrens 
 and Joneses make most essential to all their would-if-you-could 
 attempts to turn the nineteenth into the fifteenth or sixteenth cen- 
 tury,— are genuine. By-lhe-bye, have you ever made out, what I 
 never could, why ivy is always given to Bacchus, as well as to a 
 church porch? He is called, you know, ' ivy-crowned^' how can 
 such a venerable plant belong to such a jolly god, loving, as it does, 
 the oldest and even most ruined places, far from all vestige of peo- 
 pled cheerfulness ? " 
 
 I thought the remark original, but could not resolve the question. 
 
 "Well," continued the stranger, "it is only a pity that by a 
 touch of his pencil, Mr. (naming a celebrated architect) can- 
 not inspire the breast with the realities of the notions which he 
 endeavours to present to it through the eye. That belfry, calling 
 the real simple folk to church, and those few thinly scattered 
 tombstones, where 6 the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,' speak 
 more to the soul, than the most costly fictitious representations 
 of what is wanted, but never obtained, by this fashionable rage for 
 the sentimental. All that building and planting can do can never 
 reach the effect upon the imagination, or inspire the associations 
 of real veneration and piety, which the mere view of this simple 
 church, rustic as it is, never fails to generate." 
 
 I assented willingly to all this, when the gentleman went on. 
 
 "I have been told that not long ago a great master of the art 
 admitted to one of his rich employers, for whom he had built just 
 such a tower as that before us, and which he had been admirably 
 successful in 4 ivy mantling,' as he called it, that they could not 
 always command a moping owl to complain to the moon. It would 
 be so classical, he said, of an evening, to be sure of being able to 
 quote 
 
 • The moping owl does to the moon complain.' 
 
 "Mr. Longcloth," continued the stranger, " the gentleman who 
 patronized him, and was a wealthy wool stapler, caught at it, and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 323 
 
 the peasantry, tempted by a large reward, robbed all the owls in 
 the neighbourhood, of the young owlets, or their eggs, in order to 
 breed up a sufficiency of these sentimental birds, so immortalized 
 by the poet ; but the owlets all died, and though some were hatched 
 from the eggs under hens, they were all killed by their step- 
 mothers, as soon as they discovered what an ugly unnatural brood 
 they had produced." 
 
 I laughed heartily at this anecdote, which did not displease the 
 gentleman, who, perhaps upon the strength of it, entered into a 
 longer discourse with me, chiefly upon matters of taste in regard to 
 landscapes, buildings, and the comparative claims upon our admi- 
 ration of nature and art. In these he gave so decided a preference 
 to the former, that he seemed to undervalue the latter 5 and though 
 he shewed much skill in his argument, and indeed much mind upon 
 every thing, I told him so. 
 
 " You are not the first," said he, " who has made the observation, 
 and some of the quizzers presume to call me Old Primitive, because 
 I think primitive tastes, that is, those which nature first prompts, 
 the most sure of giving pleasure, aud that they ought, therefore, to 
 be followed, both in our moral conduct and our works of art." 
 
 I asked an explanation, and he went on. 
 
 " What I mean is, that I prefer the appearance of convenience 
 and comfort to grandeur and the most splendid decorations of art 
 without them. That is my first item in the catalogue. Next, in all 
 sights and sounds I abide by the same rule. Those that speak to us 
 of social happiness, the affections, the gratification of our wants, 
 come infinitely, in my mind, before those which merely gratify our 
 taste for the gorgeous or refined. 
 
 " Do you want an example? look at that smoke that curls among 
 the trees of the wood below. It gives signs of habitation-, it tells 
 that there is a man or woman there, and with them, human nature; 
 and, from the proof that there is fire, probably of human comfort. 
 Do you think that a pilgrim in the desert, helpless and solitary — 
 perhaps hungry— would not prefer this to the most beautiful works 
 of art, even those of Palmyra, should he suddenly encounter them, 
 without such an accompaniment 1 ? 
 
 " I remember," continued the gentleman, " when this first struck 
 me : it was at the magnificent Fonlainebleau, where the smoke of a 
 chimney issuing through the thatch of a cottage in the forest, gave 
 me a pleasanter feeling than all the gilded ceilings and wainscots in 
 
 1 Had Wordsworth then written, the enthusiastic stranger would, no doubt, have aided 
 his subject with these impressive lines, taken from the address on revisiting Tintern 
 Abbey ■.— 
 
 " Wreaths of smoke 
 Sent up in silence from among the trees ; 
 With some uncertain notice, as might seem, 
 Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods." 
 
324 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 the cold saloons of the palace. So also, the sight of a mere candle 
 in a casement to a traveller in the night 5 the tolling of a bell from 
 a church, or a workman's yard 5 or the sight of a little squire's house, 
 in a sheltered dale, when we fall suddenly upon it amid heaths and 
 downs 5 in short, whatever shews man in his comforts and natural 
 habits, is more interesting than what exhibits him in his pride. You 
 read Milton, no doubt, young gentleman — read, and admire him?" 
 
 I assented 5 a little struck with his rapidity. 
 
 " Then you may remember the wish of the benighted brothers, 
 lost in the wood, in Comus : — 
 
 4 Might we but hear 
 The folded flocks penn'd in their wattled cotes, 
 Or sound of pastoral reed, with oaten stops, 
 Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock 
 Count the night watches to his feathery dames.' " 
 
 I was much moved with the energy he infused into all this, as 
 well as the justness and good taste of the observation, and was about 
 to remark as much, when he proceeded : — 
 
 " Hence I prize obvious utility — that is, obvious adaptation of 
 means to ends — before Ornament ; that is, naked ornament without 
 this utility. This is, even in its mere self, one of the sources of the 
 beautiful, and so Burke considers it, in, I allow, an extreme case 
 — the snout of a swine, so plainly designed to root up the ground in 
 quest of food." 
 
 Again I was impressed with the strong feeling and eagerness 
 shewn by the stranger, on a subject I had never before considered, 
 and began both to respect, and to wonder who he was who thus 
 condescended to talk to me so willingly, and, as I thought, so well. 
 He was plainly a man of mind, and something of an enthusiast, but 
 not in my eyes the worse for that. 
 
 After a few more observations in the same strain, the church clock 
 striking mid-day, he pulled out his watch to set it ; saying, that this 
 was almost a daily occupation of his, which he did not like to forego. 
 
 " It not only keeps my house," said he, " right as to time, but 
 gives me a fair pretext, or rather obligation, to visit this favourite 
 spot oflener, perhaps, than laziness would always permit." 
 
 " It is a good deal of trouble, however," said I, wishing him to 
 go on, " and many would say scarcely worth while." 
 
 " You, I hope," returned he, " are not among them, as you seem 
 to enjoy the contemplation of nature as much as myself. If so, con- 
 sider — you have an object, we will say, in a neighbouring town, 
 though only, perhaps, to buy a quire of paper, or a strap for your 
 saddle. Should your way lie through pleasant fields, or ' by a forest 
 side or fountain 5' in short, a delightful walk, which you have leisure 
 to take 5 would you wish to be placed at once in the midst of the 
 town to obtain your purchase, or would you take the trouble and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 325 
 
 pleasure of the walk to get at A Utilitarian would scout this, 
 but I trust you are not a Utilitarian." 
 
 " Even if I were," said I, " I should feel bound by that very cha- 
 racter to prefer such a walk, for I know nothing of utility except 
 as conducing lo happiness 5 and if the walk makes you happy " 
 
 " Right, quite right," cried he, interrupting me. " I see we think 
 alike." 
 
 Then abruptly changing the subject, he said as if inquiringly, 
 " But you are not of this place? for I think I know every young 
 man in Binfield 5 and if you are not a Mr. Forrest, who is expected 
 home from abroad, I should say you are a stranger, and one I am 
 glad to see, seemingly so well cultivated." 
 
 I bowed, and told him my name was Clifford, or properly, De 
 Clifford 5 my family of Yorkshire ; and myself from Oxford, on a tour 
 of pleasure ; though, for the sake of getting better acquainted with 
 things, I was at present on foot, and lhat, struck with the beauty of 
 the neighbourhood, I had taken up my abode at the Royal oak, at 
 Oakingham. 
 
 He seemed pleased at this communication, musing at the same 
 time on the name — repeating it twice — ^'Clifford — De Clifford, of 
 Yorkshire," — as if to himself 5 then, resuming, he said, my plan 
 was a manly one, adding, that he knew my landlord well, who was 
 a philosopher in his way — as a practical one, equal, perhaps, though 
 without knowing it, to many a one at Alma Mater itself. 
 
 " But pray, may I ask your college !". said he. 
 
 " Maudlin now ; lately Queen's." 
 
 " Queen's !" cried he. " One of my oldest and most respected 
 friends is principal tutor there, and you must of course know him 
 —Mr. Fothergill." 
 
 " He was my tutor, relation, and benefactor," said 1 5 " whatever 
 I am, or whatever I may be, I owe lo him." 
 
 " I am delighted to see you," said the gentleman, " and hope lo 
 see you again. " 
 
 At this, observing that having completed his day's business wilh 
 the clock, and being wanted at home, he must leave me for the pre- 
 sent, but hoped soon to see me again, he pulled off his hat, and 
 wished me good day. 
 
 For myself, I was sorry that he did not acquaint me who he was, 
 which I could not, I thought, ask without rudeness. I wished it ; 
 for there was something original in him : but on returning to the 
 inn, the all-knowing Gayford satisfied me in a moment. 
 
 "He talked to you about natur, and all that—did he?" said 
 Gayford. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And set his watch by Binfield clock ?" 
 "Yes." 
 
326 
 
 DE CLIFFORD} 
 
 " A portly, good-natured man, free to talk a bit?" 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Depend upon it, it was Squire Manners, of the Grange. A very 
 proper gentleman, I assure you 5 one of our best 5 and hand and 
 glove with my old master, Muster Neville, who consults him about 
 garden-grounds, summer-houses, and such-like. He was formerly 
 a great man for London, where he knew all the Lords, and was in 
 Parliament, but now he hardly ever stirs from this, which indeed is 
 his native land like." 
 
 " WeU, then, why should he stir ?" 
 
 "Why, though born and bred here, and his father before him, 
 when the great house, or castle, I believe they call it in the north, 
 fell to him from his uncle, he were forced to remove, and the town 
 and foreign parts kept him a many years from us, but he said he 
 never were so happy as when he cum'd back." 
 
 " And what is his character and way of life," asked I, " for he 
 seems not a common sort of person? " 
 
 " Common ! No ! Any thing but that. Why though he be a man 
 of fortin, and cum'd, they say, of a high family, he will some- 
 times shut himself up for a month together, and see nobody but the 
 church clock-, not even Muster Neville. At best he won't visit 
 nobody but him, though he have plenty of neighbours, and good 
 ones too. Yet he will talk by the hour with a farmer, or one below 
 him, like me, or with a stranger he might meet, like you, particu- 
 larly if he liked woods, and gardens, and the moon, and such-like. 
 He can talk rarely, however, I can tell you, on a mort of things, 
 and the people that ventures to talk with him, if they oppose him, 
 are generally soon dumb-founded." 
 
 "Original enough," said 1 5 "has he far to walk to set his watch?" 
 
 ' ' About half a mile : and yet he will sometimes be an hour a-doing 
 it, he do take so many windings and turnings after any thing that 
 touches his fancy 5 not to mention gossippings 5 just as the maggot 
 bites. But I am not going to say any thing agin him, for Squire 
 Neville have a high opinion of him, and he do a deal of good, and 
 is always the poor man's friend." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 327 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 WHO THE STRANGER IS.— 'A VISIT FROM HIM, WITH A PROMISE OF MUCH PLEASURE 
 FROM HIS ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 One touch of nature makes the whole world of kin. 
 
 Shakspeare .—Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 Are not these woods 
 More free from peril than the envious court ? 
 
 As You Like It. . 
 
 The account given me by the landlord of my new acquaintance 
 pleased me so much, that I wished to see him again, and had 
 planned going up to Binfield the next day, — when, as much to my 
 pleasure as my surprise, I received a visit from him in person. He 
 was ushered into my room by Gay ford, and frankly said that as I 
 seemed* to do justice to the attractions of the forest, and was a 
 stranger to it, he would, if I pleased, be my guide to some of its 
 most beautiful spots ; " though," added he, " you are here almost 
 in the very centre of them, and your landlord, from being a yeo- 
 man-pricker, knows every inch of them as well or belter than I." 
 
 Gayford bowed, not ill-pleased at the compliment. I thanked 
 Mr. Manners most heartily for his kindness, which I gladly ac- 
 cepted ; and as we drove out of the town in a handsome park chair, 
 he said there was something so much of kin to his own mind in the 
 taste I had shewn for the natural pleasures of sentiment, inspired 
 by such scenes as he had found me in, that he had resolved to seek 
 me out. 
 
 " For," added he, " among the millions of fellow-creatures, as to 
 flesh and blood, that there are in the world, there are so few who 
 have fellowship with us as to mind, that if I meet with one once in 
 ten years, I think it a God-send, and a duty to cultivate it." 
 
 I was flattered enough with such a speech, but could not help 
 observing — " I hope it is not so difficult for kindred minds to find 
 one another out, as to make a ease once in ten years a God-send." 
 
 "That is a very comfortable sentiment," replied he, " for a 
 young man of your years and seeming complexion. When you arc 
 of my age you will, perhaps, change your note. Have you really 
 even now found so many minds congenial with your own, as to 
 doubt my position ? Have you made and preserved so many friend- 
 ships ? have you never been disappointed in your affections, and 
 never dropt, or been droptby, those you loved, and who seemed to 
 love you?" 
 
 The question was a home one, and somewhat alarmed me, for I 
 found I could not successfully reply to it. Ail that had passed at 
 
328 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 Sedbergh, compared with Oxford, and the last scenes at Foljambe 
 Park, shot across me in no pleasing colours, and I gave a sigh, 
 which did not escape my companion. 
 
 " Hah ! " said he, "I fear I have touched a string which vibrates 
 too strongly, and you may be already of my opinion, though un- 
 willing to own it. If so, I ask pardon.— But I really must tell you," 
 continued he after a long pause, "that I had another reason for 
 seeking you out, besides the seeming congeniality of our tastes 5 
 though that alone, for the reason I have given, would have prompted 
 me to do so. You told me your name w r as Clifford, or, as you re- 
 peated it, De Clifford. Mine, as the landlord informed me he had 
 acquainted you, is Manners. What if it should turn out that we are, 
 though distantly, connected ; or as, if I were a Scotchman, perhaps 
 I ought to say, nearly related?" 
 
 I was astounded at this, and began to think it might proceed 
 from some of the eccentricities which Gay ford had almost asserted 
 belonged to him. He went on, however. 
 
 " You informed me you were a De Clifford, and of Yorkshire ; 
 perhaps one of the Cliffords of Bardolfe Castle in that county?" 
 
 " Of Bardolfe parish," said I, "but not the Castle ; that was long 
 ago sold." 
 
 " I have heard so," he replied, " from a tradition in my family, 
 which also recorded the reason of it, and this I suppose you know." 
 
 I bowed assent, saying, I had heard something, though very 
 imperfectly, from my mother, of an alliance with a noble family, in 
 consequence of my great-grandfather's sister intermarrying with it, 
 and that the castle had been sold, in order to raise her portion ; but 
 the name even was so indistinctly known among us, that it had long 
 ceased to be mentioned. 
 
 "Well, then," replied he, "I can inform you that the name 
 was my own ; and that your great-grandfather's sister did us the 
 honour of espousing my grandfather, in the days of Charles II. We 
 are, therefore, you see, close cousins." 
 
 I again bowed, lost in wonder at the strangeness of the discovery, 
 but, upon the whole, far from displeased. In fact, I began to call 
 to mind that my mother had formerly said the name sounded like 
 Manhurst, or Manvers ; but this was several years ago, and even 
 she had lost her interest about it, while it was certainly not revived 
 by my father, in whom it had never excited any. 
 
 Mr. Manners then further informed me that his ancestress's por- 
 tion was 10,000Z., a great sum in those days, and asked me many 
 questions about the castle, which I answered with a pleasure in 
 descanting upon it, which also pleased him. 
 
 " I see," said he, " that my first opinion of you will be more and 
 more confirmed, and I shall hail our rencontre as it deserves, for 
 giving me such a companion. " 
 
0R> THE CONSTANT MAN. 329 
 
 He then proceeded, as we drove through the forest, to point out 
 the thousand beauties of the sylvan scenery which met the eye, 
 particularly the delightful seat of Bill Hill, and over the bridge of 
 the pretty Loddon, whose transformation from a nymph into a river 
 had so pleased the poetic feelings of honest Gayford. 
 
 Suddenly turning, we then made a detour by the romantic 
 village of Hurst, and onwards till we came once more into Asher's 
 Wood, though in a very different part of it, presenting a very dif- 
 ferent scene. For suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of an 
 extensive warren, where, seemingly, ten thousand of its furry in- 
 habitants, denizens of the place, wantoned at large throughout what 
 seemed their own domain, or sat at the doors of their snug habita- 
 tions, watching the approach of strangers. 
 
 Several wild paths traversed the place, so often trod by pas- 
 sengers that our advance did not occasion much alarm. Still the 
 sentinels eyed us, as if to ascertain our intentions ; and this and the 
 umbrageous shelter around us, made a pleasing impression upon 
 us both. 
 
 What was still more interesting in such a wilderness (for so it ap- 
 peared), I saw what most completely realized the pretty image in 
 the Allegro — 
 
 " From betwixt two aged oaks 
 Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes 
 
 and smoke it did, wreath after wreath, notwithstanding it was but 
 little past midsummer. In fact, the warrener (for it was his) and his 
 wife were preparing dinner for themselves and half-a-dozen boys 
 and girls, their happy family. 
 
 " I must introduce you to him," said Mr. Manners, " for we are 
 sworn friends, and he thinks me, I believe, a most marvellous pro- 
 per gentleman — only second to Mr. Neville, yonder." 
 
 "Yonder?" asked I, "is Mr. Neville in sight?" 
 
 And I looked with some interest about me. 
 
 " His house is," returned Manners, " if you look down the hill 
 there, over Broad Common; for those chimneys and projecting 
 pieces are Billingbere, a place, for the sake of its inhabitants, worth 
 knowing, I assure you. But here we are at the warren-house 
 which is not only a warrener's mansion, but the very prettiest inn 
 in England. How much do I not owe it? " 
 
 At this, he called aloud, " What hoa ! Will Churchman ! " 
 
 This was unnecessary, for though we had come over turf, the 
 sound of our wheels had been heard, and the whole family had 
 run out to receive us. The warrener, an old whipper-in of Mr. 
 Neville's father-, his wife, who had been own woman to Mr. Ne- 
 ville's mother-, his son, who performed the office of assistant war- 
 rener, and head ostler when visitors required it 5 together with one 
 
330 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 or two damsels and curly-headed grandchildren— all flocked round 
 Mr. Manners with a heartiness that shewed them right glad to see 
 him. 
 
 "I have told this gentleman," said Mr. Manners, " that your 
 ale, and Mrs. Churchman's butter and napkin cheeses, are the 
 best in the county. He won't believe it, so bring him a living proof 
 of it. My usual table there in the shade under the old elm will do 
 very well, and be more agreeable in this hot weather-, and mean- 
 time, give Sultan a wisp of hay and some water." 
 
 The whole family were in a moment in motion; the dame went 
 to her dairy 5 the bigger girls to the clothes-press for a clean cloth 5 
 the lesser to pick some wall-flowers, " which they knew Mr. Man- 
 ners liked so .5 " and brother John led Sultan and the chair into a 
 shady clump. Every one of the family seemed glad to see Mr, 
 Manners, and proud to serve him. 
 
 Observing I rather wondered — 
 
 " We are old friends," said he. " How long, Churchman?" 
 
 " Off and on, full forty years," answered the quondam whipper- 
 in ; " you were but eighteen when you found us out in one of your 
 rovings from Oxford. Dame and I often talks of it, and that we 
 never seed such a gentleman take so to a woodman or warrener's 
 life; and Mary, your god-daughter, who is gone for the table-cloth 
 (but she ware born long arter) — why it is now seventeen years since 
 you stood for her in Binfield church. How you used to walk the 
 woods at night, surely! Do you remember Job Sourly, who opened 
 his window and scolded you, for making such a noise with your 
 flute, that it would not let a body sleep?" 
 
 Here Mrs. Churchman, who had just placed her cream cheese 
 on the table, and who, from having been own woman to a great 
 lady, was somewhat better bred than a whipper-in, thought fit to 
 chide her husband for being too free. 
 
 " It's all very well," said she, c 5 when we are among our neigh- 
 bours or the farmers, but something different is due to gentlefolk. 
 I hope, gentlemen, you like your cheese?" 
 
 " Quite as good as ever," observed Mr. Manners, " and that's as 
 much as can be said." 
 
 "You were always a gemman," cried Churchman, "and that's 
 what I shall say the longest day I have to live." 
 
 "And you were always a good fellow, old Will," replied Mr. 
 Manners; " good to your wife and children, good to your cattle, 
 and good to your rabbits, even though you do break their necks, a 
 score or two at a time." 
 
 " No harm in that, I hope," returned Churchman ; " that's all m 
 the way of business. And what would the butchers do, and yon 
 gentlemen, who eats their beef, if killing in one's trade were a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 331 
 
 wrong thing? But I always puts the poor creatures to as little pain 
 as possible, and feeds them up well while they are alive. I do hope 
 there be no harm in it, 'squire." 
 
 He said this, as if not quite satisfied that the proposition might 
 not be doubtful 5 upon which Manners, who I saw was amusing 
 himself with him, yet at the same time, as if he was much his friend, 
 consoled him by saying that he need not be uneasy, for that at the 
 creation, God had given Adam power over rabbits as well as sheep 
 and oxen. 
 
 This satisfied old Will, who thanked his patron for giving him 
 this comfort ; and seeing our repast was done, signed to his son to 
 bring round Sultan and the chair. Mr. Manners, however, desired 
 him to let me see his house and garden before we left him. 
 
 "He is of Oxford, as I was," said Mr. Manners, "and who 
 knows but he may love roving, too, and come and take your lod- 
 gings, and play the flute in the woods as I did, every year for 
 another ten years?" 
 
 The warrener bowed, and his missus, as he called her, curtsied, 
 and said it would make them very proud, and Mrs. Churchman 
 whispered to Mary to run quick and get the patched counterpane 
 off the best bed, against we came to see it. 
 
 We then advanced into the house, and never was I better pleased 
 with the simplicity and moderation in which the most perfect 
 comfort may be enjoyed. A sitting-room up stairs, lighted on three 
 sides of it, displayed the beautiful forest in all its glades and na- 
 tural avenues, and all the glories of its noble timber. The warren 
 presented a busy scene under the windows, and a glade let in the 
 house and park of Billingbere, which still inspired me with strong 
 though secret interest, because Lady Hungerford was still there. 
 The room in the collage, the prospect, the retirement, the wild- 
 ness, the neatness, all made it a happy place, which no palace 
 could exceed. A bed-room within it was equally attractive for the 
 same reasons, and I did not wonder that Mr. Manners, till he 
 quilted his town life and came to live regularly at the Grange, used 
 it as a delicious villa retreat during the summer months for ten 
 years together. 
 
 This he informed me of in his way home — for home he was 
 going without my being aware of it till we were at the very gates ; 
 and during the drive he gave me some little insight into his early 
 history. He acquainted me that, when an under-graduate at Christ 
 Church, he had (as indeed he had been all his life, till lately) been 
 much given to roving, as old Churchman called it ; and in his 
 various rambles from the house he now lived in, and which then 
 was inhabited by his grandfather, had, by the veriest chance, pur- 
 suing one of the tracks through Asher's Wood, stumbled upon this 
 warren-house, belonging to Mr. Neville ; that, struck with its seclu- 
 
332 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 sion as well as its beauty, being then, as he said, in one of his ro- 
 mantic moods, he immediately set up his tent there, as he thought, 
 for a day and a night, and ^staid a month, in preference to his 
 grandfather's, in order to be, what he always liked, completely 
 alone ; that he got books and musical instruments from Reading, 
 and was so immersed in these pleasures of solitude, greater for the 
 contrast they exhibited to the headlong dissipation, the " rows," 
 and (at that time) drunkenness of Oxford, that it seemed a new 
 and better world to him 5 that he repeated the visit the next and 
 several summers after — in short, as long as his grandfather lived. 
 It unbent his mind, and enabled it to recover its tone, when a little 
 damaged by the world of London and Paris, not to say Naples, at 
 which places his connections, unfortunately, he said, enabled him 
 to make a figure — a scurvy one he feared 5 for the fever in which 
 he lived with all ranks and conditions of men, and women too, kept 
 him from one self-approving hour 5 that best and purest, if not only 
 real happiness of man. He said that he often opened himself to 
 Fothergill in these moments of self-blame and disgust, who had, 
 with his good heart and Cooraberland long-headedness, steered 
 clear of all these quicksands, and advised temporary retirement 
 and self-examination as the best remedy. 
 
 " He was right," added Mr. Manners. " It is extraordinary how 
 that keen northern air sharpens the wits, even where there has 
 not been much experience of the world, of which Fothergill must 
 have known less than myself; for he was not older, and had not 
 seen so much of men, though he evidently knew more of their 
 hearts, I cannot tell how. I took his advice, and my father always 
 living in a round of company in summer, whom, from having had 
 too much of them in winter, I wished to avoid, I often came here 
 to enjoy a calm after a storm; and, to be sure, if we wished to 
 lead a life after nature, never was a place so calculated for it. In 
 fact, after being a macaroni for six months in the palaces of London, 
 and dancing with and studying countesses, I became an admirer 
 of the simple beauties of nature in these woods, and employed 
 myself in studying the rustic manners that belonged to their inha- 
 bitants." 
 
 " And which did you prefer?" asked I, not a little interested in 
 this account, perhaps because I had not been able myself to make 
 up my mind upon the question. 
 
 " All that I have been able to settle upon it," answered he, " is, 
 that it never can be settled. To make a rule is impossible. In town, 
 from the frivolity of the people of fashion while there, I have often 
 wished for rustic simplicity 5 while the very same people, when in 
 the country, by falling back into the track of honest nature, but 
 engrafting upon her their own superiority of education and man- 
 ners, have made me think simplicity a very milk-and-water thing. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 333 
 
 I could name names, but I won't; nor would you, perhaps, know 
 them if I did." 
 
 f Are the countesses, then, you studied, such frivolous beings in 
 London? As I am a stranger to countesses, I should like to know." 
 
 " I cannot say," replied he, " that those I allude to were really 
 frivolous ; but they acted as if they were, or something worse. But, 
 perhaps, we may talk farther of this." 
 
 It was time indeed to stop, for we had now reached the Grange ; 
 and what was my surprise and pleasure too, on the appearance of 
 its moat, to find that it was the very same house which had so much 
 excited my interest the day before, in my walk from Binfield. 
 
 Its style I have described, but what it was built of I could not at 
 first discover, for it was covered all over with vines, which, at this 
 time of year, were most luxuriant, promising in a month or two 
 more a delicious vintage, for every cluster looked full south, and 
 many of them, by the care of the owner, were already ripening in 
 bell glasses. A very ample porch, with seats in it, opened into a 
 square hall, with an old-fashioned stair-case of twisted, but mas- 
 sive bannisters, leading to some (not many) comfortable apartments. 
 Those below ranged round the hall, and that we entered, which 
 was called the drawing-room, was hung with tapestry, representing 
 Alexander at the lent of Darius. 
 
 Mr. Manners welcomed me with much politeness, a quality 
 which ten years' absence from the scenes where it had been ac- 
 quired had by no means weakened. He was pleased to say that, 
 for my own sake, he would have been glad to see me ; but when he 
 knew that I was the relation, as well as pupil, of his excellent Fo- 
 thergill, and found out that I was of the same blood with himself, 
 his pleasure had become a duty. 
 
 In allusion also to our connection, he led me to a large, well- 
 blazoned pedigree in the hall, and pointed out to me the marriage 
 of "Sir Philip Manners with Griselda De Clifford, daughter of 
 Hugh De Clifford, of Bardolfe Castte, who was lineal from Sir Wil- 
 liam De Clifford, by Anne, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Lord 
 Bardolfe, killed at Bramham Moor, temp. Henrie IV." 
 
 This left no doubt in my mind, if I had had any, that the honour 
 he had assigned me, was no more than correct 5 and I felt no little 
 pride upon it, on more accounts than one 5 — for I own I thought of 
 Bertha. 
 
 He observed my pleasure in it, and said smilingly, " You will 
 dine with me, my cousin, and I will shew you all my hermitage," 
 (for so he called his place) 5 " and though I won't promise to drive 
 you myself back to Oakingham in the evening, you shall have the 
 chair, and the groom to bring it home." 
 
 I suitably acknowledged this civility, and gladly accepted the 
 dinner, but declined the chair. 
 
334 
 
 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 u For I am sure," said I, " you of all men, in such a season and 
 such a country, would not deprive me of a moonlight walk." 
 
 "Not for the world," cried he; "I see more and more you 
 are of the right sort, and a worthy scion of the De Cliffords and 
 Manners." 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 OF THE PLEASANT AND NOTABLE CONVERSATION I HAD WITH MR. MANNERS, ON THE 
 CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE WORLD AND RETIREMENT. 
 
 Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court, 
 And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ? 
 I seek not to wax great by others' waning. 
 Or gather wealth, I care not with what envy : 
 Sufficeth that I have maintains my state, 
 And sends the poor well pleased from my gate. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 2 Henry VL 
 
 Mr. Manners now invited me into his garden, "which," said 
 he, "I am not without pleasure in shewing 5 although, if you are a 
 Brownite or a Reptonite, you will not like it, for it is what I hold 
 that the garden of a grange — which is not, you know, a palace — 
 ought to be. Indeed, I am not certain if a palace garden stoopt a 
 little more to the grange it would be the worse for it. However, a 
 grange we are, and a grange we must be. 
 
 ' Parvum parva decent, mini jam non regia Roma, 
 Sed vacuum Tiber placet, aut imbelle Tarentum '.' 
 
 "As to the house," continued he, '"I trust it has comforts ^ 
 which is all I aim at, for nature wants no more 5 though in a garden : 
 I acknowledge, she revels, and requires that her rich gifts should 
 be gratefully acknowledged by unremitting care." 
 
 Seeing that I lingered still, in eyeing the house, he added — 
 
 " You will find nothing there particularly worth looking at. I 
 admire the arts, and think architecture among the very finest 5 1 
 have looked by the hour at Michael Angelo's wonders, and enjoy 
 Inigo Jones's elegant proportions but as to the interior of dwel- 
 lings, Heaven keep me from a house too fine to live in." 
 
 We now sallied into the garden, and I own I was disappointed. 
 I expected a French or Italian taste, or perhaps both, engrafted on 
 
 ( Horace, Ep. l, 1. 
 
 For little folks become their little fate : 
 And at my age, not Rome's imperial seat, 
 But soft Tarentum's more delicious ease, 
 Or Tiber's solitude, my taste can please. 
 
 Francis' Horace. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 335 
 
 the modern English ; — trellises, balustrades, busts, hot-houses, con- 
 servatories. Except the last Cof no great dimensions), there were 
 none of these. There was an abundance of natural flowers, and 
 some beautiful exotics 5 but these were, I thought, too much min- 
 gled with beds of herbs for culinary purposes, of which the flowers 
 formed the borders. This produced a style nearer the preceding, 
 than the then century, in which, indeed, the useful seemed to in- 
 terfere rather too much with the ornamental, not to weaken the ap- 
 pearance of the latter. There was even an approximation to the 
 ferme ornee, which I knew many critics would censure. 
 
 There was a piece of water, which had all the appearance of a 
 pond (for it was too small for a lake), and was only divided from 
 the garden by an open fence, letting in the view of whatever cattle 
 might choose to drink, or cool themselves in it. This appeared to 
 derogate from the trim garden seclusion which is so recommended 
 by the learned in those matters 5 and I own I myself thought it a fault. 
 
 This, however, I did not venture to remark to him ; indeed, as 
 he was a man who had a reason for every thing, whether for or 
 against general customs, I expected, as it turned out, that he would 
 himself explain the apparent solecism. 
 
 Observing what I thought of it, he began his defence with ani- 
 mation, as if I had already touched upon a hobby of his which he 
 would not have censured. 
 
 " Why there it is," said he; " I see what is in your mind 5 and 
 that you are one of the petits maitres of landscape gardening, who 
 call yourselves men of taste, and think you monopolize it. You have 
 nature and simplicity always in your mouths, yet are always depart- 
 ing from them. What sight in nature can be more gratifying than 
 to see that meek, patient, and bountiful animal (pointing to a cow) 
 revelling in the feast which nature has provided for her in the 
 flowery mead she crops, or the clear water she drinks ? Exclusive 
 of (he pleasure which to see this alone creates in a benevolent mind, 
 for the animal's sake, what ideas of luscious plenty does it not call 
 up for our own ! How pleasant, not to say beautiful (from the asso- 
 ciations of the foaming pails of the dairy, which it creates), is the 
 sight of these useful creatures, cooling themselves in the water, or 
 drinking it without fear of harm, and all to contribute to our com- 
 fort and our plenty. These are what I call the simple, because the 
 natural, and therefore the primitive pleasures of man. They were 
 those which man enjoyed before he was made an artificial character, 
 or built palaces and hanging gardens \ for Eden was before Babylon." 
 
 I was struck with his energy about this, and perhaps to hear 
 what he had more to say (for I began to agree with him), I said, 
 all that was abstractedly true of a farm, but there were persons who 
 might think the sight not so compatible with garden elegance. 
 
 " Why, taking you at your word, 1 ' said he, " what can even be 
 
336 DH CLIFFORD ; 
 
 more elegant? For you see my cows are handsome In shape, and 
 have polished skins, denoting by their sleekness health, and there- 
 fore happiness to themselves, of which the possessor of them must 
 necessarily partake. Hence one of the necessary parts of taste itself 
 (which is to produce pleasurable sensations) is completely exempli- 
 fied 5 and the more so because it is moral and mental pleasure, as 
 all notions of happy feelings or prospects are. In this, therefore, 
 this simple sight exceeds that of the most costly specimens of art, 
 diamonds, or what is beyond them, sculpture or painting. But it is 
 even sensual — if that is what you fine people require 5 for what can 
 equal the perfume of the atmosphere occasioned by the mere breath- 
 ing of these delightful animals?" 
 
 At this he snuffed up the air, as if to prove his assertion beyond 
 contradiction, and I confess he compelled me to follow his example, 
 not merely from imitation, for it equalled the purest essence of 
 flowers. For the sake of argument, however, I pointed at the un- 
 sightly track made by his favourites in passing to and from the pond. 
 
 " Aye," said he, " I allow that is a defect, and a drawback if you 
 will 5 and if you saw it from the parterre, or the windows of the 
 house, or in any of the immediate walks around, it might be an 
 eyesore to you professors of taste. But you see, that in those parts 
 it is completely planted out from the eye, and you must come ex- 
 pressly to this spot to behold the unsightliness. Could the sightly 
 parts of a farm be viewed alone, I would have them in the midst of 
 the garden 5 they and the flowers would mutually set off one another. 
 Even as it is, the flowers of the field, and the pleasure given by the 
 sight of the animals, counterbalance the disadvantages." 
 
 Here I thought him wrong, his strong partiality to natural tastes 
 not sufficiently distinguishing their differences 5 so I observed that 
 it seemed to me he was blending the garden and farm-yard too 
 much together. 
 
 " I agree with you," said he, " that the exhibition belongs rather 
 to farming than gardening 5 but what law prevents a union of both, 
 if you can keep the disagreeables out of sight, and only preserve the* 
 agreeables? — and then, what more pleasing than these condemned 
 objects? As to their proximity to the house, I prefer the pleasure 
 arising from the sense of convenience and household advantages 
 which it gives (for that in itself is a strong natural pleasure), to the 
 total want of this interest, occasioned by the fastidiousness of ba- 
 nishing them so far off, that out of sight, they are out of mind. It 
 is astonishing what havoc this fastidiousness makes in our stock of 
 happiness, when, under a false notion of elegance, it persuades us 
 to part with the notion, that as men, we are to feel wants, and that 
 to supply them is our natural employment. No 5 I would rather 
 have 4 the smell of tedded grass, or kine,' and that little Alderney 
 close even to my drawing-room windows, were Queen Charlotte 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 337 
 
 herself and her daughters there, than alt the finery of lawns and 
 orange trees, without a single reminiscence of our real condition. 
 How much," added he, 44 do kings and queens, and overgrown 
 nobles, and minions of wealth, lose, in being deprived of this sen- 
 timent, by having all things done for them ! Who would not be mi- 
 serable with Fortunatus' wishing cap ! " 
 
 I felt the force of this reasoning, and also of the consequence he 
 drew from it, that all good taste requiring natural feeling for its 
 foundation, and the homely feelings being most natural of all, they 
 were eminent ingredients in forming good taste. 
 
 44 By the homely feelings," said he, "I mean all that relates to 
 the comfort and convenience of a home 5 and so far I carry it, that 
 the most common domestic sights and sounds, denoting the habita- 
 tion and occupations of man, give me (as a matter of taste, mind 
 you) more uniform and unfailing pleasure than many of the finest 
 works of art." 
 
 I asked what sights and sounds he meant. 
 
 44 Even a flock of pigeons on the house-top, if you will," he 
 answered ; 44 the smoke of chimneys, the bark of the watch-dog, or 
 the crow of a cock. I have even felt my taste gratified on returning 
 from a twilight walk, in hearing the sound of cattle in a field, 
 though perhaps I could not see them, biting the fresh grass or 
 chewing the cud. I am not sure that I am not more pleased with 
 this (though certainly not so struck with wonder) than with the 
 columns of Staffa, the magnificence of Schaffhausen, or the falls of 
 Lodore." 
 
 The animation with which he uttered this let me more into the 
 essence of his character (that is, his enthusiasm) than any thing thai 
 had yet occurred 5 and though I did not quite agree with him, .1 
 both wished and expected more. Nor did he disappoint me, for 
 the stream of his mind was perpetual, especially on the subject we 
 were upon, for he said, whoever had pleasure in a garden, need 
 never stir out of it. 
 
 44 1 would not indeed," said he, 44 exchange the elegance, beauty, 
 and perfume, and above all, the soothing of this spot, for all the 
 gratifications which ambition can give. For when did ambition 
 cause any thing like the delight of the mere opening buds of the 
 spring, the blush and the sweetness of the rose, or what has been 
 appropriately called 4 the noble plainness of the lily?' I say 4 sooth 
 ing,' because it is the most appropriate term I can apply to it, 
 when in a particular frame of mind. For if any thing ruffles me 
 (which, thank God ! in this retirement is but seldom), if I have 
 any unpleasant feeling to gel the better of, or even any bad public 
 news, half a dozen turns in this daisy-studded walk, particularly if 
 fresh with showers, recovers me directly." 
 
 44 That," said I, 44 1 can fully comprehend, and the soothing you 
 I. 22 
 
338 DE CLIFFORD*, 
 
 have mentioned makes me feel the propriety of, perhaps, an extra- 
 ordinary comparison which Bacon makes of (he perfume of a gar- 
 den, to strains of music floating in the air, 'coming and going.' " 
 
 " I thank you for recollecting it," said Mr. Manners; " for, 
 though extraordinary, it is a pretty comparison, and it were amus- 
 ing to follow it upo It, however, can be only to the softer and more 
 pathetic airs of music that flowers can be likened, and even they 
 must be of 4he gentler and more delicate kind-, those violets and 
 lilies of the valley, for example, those anemonies, heart's ease, po- 
 lyanthus, and we may admit a few young rosebuds. These may re- 
 mind us of the softer and more pathetic, as well as elegant strains 
 in the graceful minuets of Handel and Gluck. But very full-blown 
 roses, narcissus, pinks, and gaudy tulips, do not come under the 
 head of soothing, any more than chorusses, overtures, or grand 
 sinfonias." 
 
 I thought this both playful and just, and he seemed to like it 
 himself, when, as if recollecting himself, he said : 
 
 " If I mistake not, I left here yesterday a book (we were close to 
 an alcove), where all I feel on this subject is developed in far better 
 language than mine." 
 
 At this, having found the book, he read : " Gardens have charms, 
 that to me exceed all the pleasures of life. It was a garden that was 
 the earthly paradise of our first parents in a stale of innocence : it 
 was in a garden that Epicurus taught his philosophy, who was said 
 to have understood true pleasure the best of any man. But suffice 
 it to say, that when you grow into years — when you begin to 
 exercise the mind more than the body, as men before they grow 
 old always do — then you will find the help of it to contemplation ; 
 then the walks, the trees, the plants, the birds, the open air, all 
 fellow-creatures of yours, made together with you, for his pleasure 
 — who is, the Author of all things — will please you indeed; when 
 especially the innocence, calmness, and serenity of your thoughts, 
 make you fit for so divine and ravishing an exercise." 
 
 Here he closed the book, and I expressed to him my pure and 
 sincere pleasure in hearing such eloquent and feeling passages, and 
 asked who was the author? 
 
 " It will surprise you more," said he, " when I tell you that he 
 was no recluse, afraid of the world, or to mix in its storms, but 
 an eminent statesman, and one of the very few whose character was 
 not only stainless, but illustrious, among those who brought about 
 the Revolution— it was King William's Lord Privy Seal, the Vis- 
 count Lonsdale. Honour him, too, the more, that he was educated 
 at Sedbergh, like you, and like you removed to Queen's." 
 
 This put me into raptures with all he said so well upon (he gar- 
 den subject. 
 
 "Ana* yet," observed Mr. Manners, resuming it, "as to gar- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 331) 
 
 dens, I have a crotchet which you will perhaps be shocked with. 
 Much as i love, admire, and delight in flowers, if I had but one, i 
 should prefer the kitchen garden." 
 
 u What, lose the elegance of flowers?" 
 
 " Yes, rather than the benefit of herbs. For again I say, man 
 thinks of what is necessary before what is ornamental ; he 
 was a cook before he was a gentleman ; and I regard scentless 
 flowers, at least, with all their painted charms, and even those that 
 emit the sweetest perfumes, when I think how ephemeral they are, 
 as I have regarded many of their pretty and perfumed sisters in the 
 world, as beautiful and as ephemeral as they. How many of these 
 look fair, and bloom for a time, but are only attractive to the eye, 
 and for the moment, and are wholly without power to charm the 
 mind or fix the heart. Such are by far too many of those beautiful 
 tulips of flesh and blood, (all show, but no fragrance), who throng 
 our drawing-rooms,, radiant in colours, brim-full of accomplish- 
 ments (made so by what is called female education), but totally de- 
 void of powers of companionship, or capacity to perform the higher 
 duties of the sex. 
 
 64 Surely," said I, " this is not the character of woman?" 
 
 " Certainly not of all women," replied he, u but as certainly of 
 the greater part of those who revel in the reckless whirl of a London 
 season. These know not one sober thought or generous emotion, 
 at lenslMwing that time all is a thankless waste of spirits and mind 
 on glittering nothings, and they return to the country so shattered, 
 both in body and soul, that even there, before they can recover, a 
 second madness bursts out by the renewal of the season, and a se- 
 cond access of the distemper plunges them deeper and deeper, till 
 their case is incurable I ." 
 
 >a I could hardly suppose this," said I, ^ for I never was in Lon- 
 don, and I cannot divine the cause of what seems so preposterous." 
 
 " It is the effect," rejoined he, " of what appears innocent at 
 first, under the milder term of dissipation ; which, however, grows 
 upon and corrupts the heart, till its good feelings are extinguished; 
 and though what is called crime may not be committed, every thing 
 like virtue is stifled ; the poor abandoned, fortune wasted, and all 
 but self forgotten." 
 
 Here, looking at a book on the table of the alcove, " O! how 
 true," said he, " is Crabbe's description of the modern Lady of the 
 Manor, who never knew and never cared for distress, so long as it 
 came not nigh her :— 
 
 ' In town she dwelt, forsaken stood the hall, 
 Worms ate the floors, the tap'stry fled the wall. 
 
 1 In order that I may not suffer in the opinion of ray fair readers, I beg to point out 
 £hat this was Mr. Manners' sentiment, not mine, and that Mr. Manners was an enthusiast 
 
BE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 No fire the kitchen's cheerless grate "display**!. 
 No cheerful light the long-closed sash convey'cL 
 The crawling worm, that turns a summer fly, 
 Here spun his shroud, and laid him up to die. 
 To empty rooms the curious came no more, \ 
 From empty cellars turn'd the angry boor, v. 
 And surly beggars curs'd the ever-bolted door. ) 
 To one small room the steward found his way, 
 Where tenants followed to complain and pay; 
 Yet no complaint before the lady came, 
 The feeling servant spared the feeble dame : 
 Her oaks, her acres, why with care explore i* 
 Why learn the wants, the sufferings of the poor?' " 
 
 " This," said I, " is a sad account of those without whom the 
 poets tell us we should ourselves be brutes. Surely it is over- 
 charged, or applicable only to a few." 
 
 u More perhaps than you are aware of; though I allow many of 
 them, made for better things, would be shocked to think they de- 
 served this character, and when set before them ( which it seldom 
 is), would make strong efforts to deliver themselves from their 
 thraldom, brilliant as it is." 
 
 k4 As I must bow to your experience," observed I, " I have upon 
 this nothing to say ; but whatever may be said of the flowers of a 
 drawing-room, I never will believe that these roses of nature, while 
 they smell so sweet, are useless. Indeed, as has been well said, no 
 one can be unhappy in the atmosphere of flowers." 
 
 u Pray observe," answered Mr. Manners, " that in what I said 
 to their disparagemenl, I only spoke of scentless flowers ; and, even 
 in regard to them, of their ephemeral character. For, spite of these 
 defects, all flowers, I gladly own, because always glad to praise and 
 thank Him who made so much for our happiness, were expressly 
 designed to contribute to it. For though their honey may be ex- 
 tracted by other creatures, their beauty and perfume can have been 
 made only for man. Man alone can, by sentiment, draw out and 
 appreciate this part of their value, and feel it enhanced by the gra- 
 titude it inspires. It is therefore I can never walk the garden with- 
 out feeling a sense of thankfulness amounting to genuine religion." 
 
 I honoured him more and more for these sentiments, but could 
 not help observing, 
 
 " You do not, then, think a bed of even scentless flowers so 
 useless ; still less those that perfume lheair T though ephemeral ? " 
 
 " Far from it," he replied, 44 while they look so lovely and smell 
 so sweet. But how long do they do so? Sweet to-day ; the reverse 
 to-morrow, without a sign left of their utility. Whereas, all those 
 tribes of roots and vegetables, wholesome esculents, and sanative 
 herbs, are full of lasting benefit to our lives and constitutions. To 
 lose them would bring real misery upon all, but especially the poor ; 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 34 1 
 
 to cultivate, tend, and enjoy them, therefore, is a lasting pleasure, 
 as a lasting duty. A bed of painted wonders is, to be sure, more 
 gaudy and flaunting, or, if you will, more gorgeous and proud, 
 than the humble olitory (to use Evelyn's expression). They seem 
 to affect royalty in the comparison ; but I agree with the quaint but 
 vivid Hervey — 4 A kitchen garden looks, methinks, like a plain and 
 frugal republic. Whatever may resemble the pomp of courts or the 
 ensigns of royalty is banished from this humble community.' " 
 
 I now perceived the reason for what I, at first, did not quite like 
 —the close mixture of flowers and herbs which Mr. Manners had 
 thus explained. As to the keeping of the borders, or the walks, 
 nothing could be more perfect, and I expressed my admiration of it. 
 
 " You must have had genuine pleasure, and much regard for the 
 art," said I, " to produce this exhibition of beauty and neatness 
 combined." 
 
 u You are right," said he ; " for when I bade adieu to turbulence 
 and dissipation to come down here, 4 stedfaslly purposing to lead a 
 new life,' my garden renewed the innocent and kindly feelings of 
 my childhood, for in childhood I was never so happy as when oc- 
 cupied with one. But these feelings had been sadly damaged and 
 forgotten in the contests of the world. Here, however, in shade 
 and coolness, and equally in sunshine (as the weather or disposi- 
 tion of the moment prompted), I felt the force of what has been so 
 well said, that the most pleasing part of solitude is to be exempt 
 from the passions. I lost sight of political struggles, generating 
 envy and, for the moment, hatred • or the quarrels of authors, ge- 
 nerating malice, bad language, and mutual contempt." 
 
 "Have you, then/' said I, rather surprised, " been an author 
 as well as a politician? I heard, indeed, that you had been in 
 Parliament." 
 
 "I scarce know how to answer," replied he. "As to regular 
 authorship, no. But I lived often wiltf authors, and, what was worse, 
 critics, and dabbled a little among both." 
 
 "And what did you chiefly observe?" 
 
 "That both were of the genus irritabile$ the critics, perhaps, 
 the worst of the two. Horace would certainly have mentioned them 
 with becoming sharpness, had there been reviewers and a periodical 
 press in his time at Rome." 
 
 I felt more and more interest about my host at this intimation, 
 and longed to hear his opinions upon this important class of persons, 
 one or two of whom I had heard Folhergill denounce in his trenchant 
 way. One of them, he said, though so able as to be above vanity, 
 was more vain than the author he criticised another, though so 
 shallow as to be contemptible, as impossible to humble or contend 
 with as a polecat or a chimney-sweeper, and for the same reason. 
 
 I mentioned this to my observing host, and he said it was quite 
 
342 
 
 DE CLIFFORD: 
 
 in Fothergill's si\le, and pretty much his own opinion. This, 
 however, he begged to defer giving in a place dedicated, by its pure 
 and innocent character, to far other subjects than envy, hatred, 
 and malice. In this I agreed, and, only changing a little the article 
 of time, I thought I saw in my new friend the picture of the Count 
 in the Belise of Marmontel. "Une espece de philosophe dans la 
 vigueur de son age, qui, apres avoir joui de tout pendant six mois 
 de Fannee a la ville, venoit jouir six mois de lui-m6me, dans une 
 solitude voluptueuse." 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 MORE OF HOMELY PURSUITS 1 — MR. MANNERS' OPINIONS OF SOME FAVOURITE AUTHORS, 
 NOT QUITE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THOSE IN GENERAL ENTERTAINED. — THE EFFECTS 
 OF EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet , 
 Than that of painted pomp ? 
 
 Shakspeare.— As You Like It. 
 
 Having surveyed the garden, we now prepared to return to the 
 house ; but first, opening a gale, Mr. Manners led me into an in- 
 closure of about a quarter of an acre, covered with buck-wheat, 
 and the crop covered with bees. These swarmed, and seemed to 
 drink perfume in the foliage of two or three odoriferous limes, 
 round which they winged a perpetual flight, with an unceasing, 
 yet soothing hum, which, with the heat of the day, would in a few 
 minutes have invited us to sleep. All round there was a border of 
 sweet herbs, and on one side, facing the south, were ranged, in an 
 alcove, perhaps a dozen hives. 
 
 Mr. Manners, seeing my pleased look at this little honied spot, 
 said, "I hope you like my apiary?" and pointing to a small clear 
 stream which intersected it, added, " you see I have copied my 
 master, Virgil, pretty closely, in this refreshing rivulet, and these 
 protecting limes." At this he recited, with emphasis, those pleas- 
 ing lines : — 
 
 " At Siquidi fontes, et stagna virentia musco 
 Adsint, et tenuis fugiens per gramina rivus ; 
 Palmaque vestibulum, aut ingens oleaster inumbrat, 
 Ut cum prima novi (lucent examina reges 
 Vere suo, ludetque fa vis emissa juventus ; 
 Vicina invitet decedere ripa calori, 
 Obviaque hospitiis teneat frondentibus arbos 1 ." 
 
 But near a living stream their mansion place, 
 Edged round with moss and tufts of matted grass, 
 And plant (the wind's impetuous rage to stop) 
 Wild olive trees, or palms, before the busy shop ■ 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 343 
 
 "This," said he, 44 is another of those domestic sights and 
 sounds, and not the meanest or least pleasurable, I assure you, of 
 those we have been discussing." 
 
 " There are those, however," said I, " who might think this 
 beneath one who has lived with statesmen and warriors, and men 
 of learning and genius." 
 
 " I hope/' returned he, "you are not one of them. There is a 
 philosophy which analyzes every thing. It dissects the occupations 
 of the world, and those of retirement, and the same occupations 
 have a very different aspect according to the scene. In the world I 
 might feel out of place in watching my bees, when I ought to be in 
 business. But, you see I am in retirement, where lesser interests 
 become of consequence. The pursuit of us all is happiness, and he 
 can never be said to be independent in his, who cannot concen- 
 trate his wishes and enjoyments to the spot he inhabits, whether in 
 town or country." 
 
 "Nothing more clear," answered I, "to common sense ^ but 
 what would your countesses say to this?" 
 
 "They have not common sense," replied he, " though they have 
 talents, and a great many accomplishments. We will, therefore, 
 refuse them as judges. But if they knew any thing about it, pro- 
 bably they would envy me, for I mistake if they have any such 
 enjoyment in the whole range of their splendid, but artificial lives. 
 They know nothing of honey except to eat it ; yet their finely- 
 bound books on natural history, into which they never look, might 
 teach them that there were pleasures belonging to it — pleasures 
 which, without searching Buffon, or Goldsmith, or the Spectacle 
 cle la Nature, the meanest cottager can enjoy and understand." 
 
 "When I consider your rank and condition of life," said I, 
 " this is at least new to me." 
 
 "Why, no doubt," he replied, "you will wonder when I tell 
 you that to watch these creatures is one of my daily and rather 
 favourite amusements. I, who have figured (that is, made an ex- 
 hibition of myself) in drawing-rooms (nay, the drawing-room), 
 reduced, you will say, to content myself with figuring in a bee 
 garden. But, independent of the reasons I have alluded to, drawn 
 from the study of nature, this was one of the pleasantest amuse- 
 ments of my youth, and thus it belongs to early recollections ; 
 which is quite enough to explain its agreeableness. Add to this, 
 that honey is of great use as a medicine, and an exquisite compound 
 in arte coquinarid-, for which, if only because it falls within my 
 
 Then, when the youthful prince, with loud alarm, 
 Calls out the vent'rous colony to swarm, 
 TLie banks of brooks may make a cool retreat 
 For the raw soldiers from the scalding heat. " 
 
 Dryden's Pirgil. 
 
344 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 creed that it is one of the natural pleasures, I am not ashamed of 
 confessing my reverence. I will, therefore, when we return to the 
 house, show you the best receipt for fattening fowls, as Sir Roger 
 de Coverley showed his grandmother's receipt, in her own hand, 
 for a milk-pot, though she had been a maid of honour. What is 
 belter still, you shall at dinner have a convincing proof of its efficacy, 
 in the fowl that will be served up to you." 
 
 " I rejoice to find by this," said I, " that the study of cookery, 
 which it seems, with you, is one of the studies of nature, is not in- 
 compatible with high rank, and still higher education." 
 
 u Jt is, as you say," replied he, "a study of nature, and this 
 would be proved if only by the pleasure children lake in it them- 
 selves, or watching its process by others, who are removed by 
 situation from following it up as a profession. I had once an aunt 
 Dinah, a kind and grave old lady, of the very old school. When 
 dressed in an evening, she wore a large hoop, and long and expen- 
 sive laced ruffles; but the strongest reason I have for remembering 
 her is, that on a morning, with lucked-up sleeves, she handled the 
 rolling-pin so well in making cakes for tea. I think I see her now 
 in the housekeeper's room, weighing out the flour. Yet she .had 
 two waiting-maids and a footman at her command. Will you say 
 she was not as happy in this as a finer lady, who perhaps would do 
 the same if she dared ? " 
 
 I found from this, and other observations, that I should every 
 minute gain more and more from this new acquaintance which I 
 had so fortuitously and luckily made, and listened to him with 
 pleasure as in our walk back to the house he gave me further in- 
 stances of his observing mind. 
 
 " In regard to happiness," said he, " who can give rules as to 
 the circumstances which confer it, whether in cultivating bees in a 
 grange like this, or dancing with a maid of honour at a court ball? 
 I have experienced both. I have tried happiness in a palace 5 I 
 have tried it in a cottage; I have found it in both 5 1 have found it 
 in neither. The reason? because the true place for it is the mind ; 
 and it depends not upon either palace or cottage — the cour royale, 
 or the basse cour — to find it. Whoever is greatly interested by 
 what is within, or not greatly out of his reach, is happy." 
 
 " This, perhaps, is the reason," I ventured to observe (though I 
 fear with some consciousness), u why we hear so much of love in 
 a cottage." 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said he; "and I have sometimes seen with 
 pleasure the happiness enjoyed there. But, then, it was because of 
 the love, not of the cottage — love so absorbing, that it made place 
 a matter of indifference. This, indeed, may be added, that a cottage 
 is generally associated with spring or summer, and the country. A 
 small lodging in a close street in London would, I allow, make love 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 345 
 
 a very different affair, and require something of the palace to point 
 its charms. 1 ' 
 
 More and more admiring the variety of topics on which the mind 
 of my enlightened companion had employed itself, and hoping for 
 still farther investigations, I was glad, on returning to the house, to 
 be introduced into a library, full of all varieties of literature in 
 different languages, but chiefly those of belles lettres and mora! 
 and natural philosophy. 
 
 Mr. Manners saw, with some pleasure, that which my countenance 
 exhibited at the sight thus presented. " II y a de quoi s'amuser" 
 said he (for, from having been much in France, he frequently 
 adopted French phrases), '"and if ever man can do without his 
 fellowmen, and look down on the world, it is in such a room and in 
 such a seat as this." 
 
 Here he threw himself into an easy chair close to a window, 
 which let in a quiet and soothing, but variegated prospect of fields 
 and woods, with the tower of Binfield church in the distance. 
 
 " Has a man," said he, " who thinks he has seen enough and to 
 spare of tne world, any thing to wish for beyond this?" 
 
 ' 'Or, as you might have added," observed I, "who lias not seen 
 the world at all." 
 
 "No-, young gentleman, that won't do. It is not, and ought 
 not to be your creed. Fothergill would tell you there is a great deal 
 more for a tyro to do, before he has a right to what I am now 
 enjoying." 
 
 Here he stretched himself out in a kind of voluptuous listless- 
 ness : then went on — 
 
 "No; you may read, nay, you must, to fit yourself for the part you 
 are to take in life 5 but not till you have finished your course in the 
 actual scenes of it have you the right to sit still and look back upon 
 it in books." 
 
 Wishing him to go on, I ventured to dissent from this. 
 
 "You are wrong," said he, "and I am sure that is not what 
 friend Folhergill has taught you. Yet it is a pardonable mistake, 
 and wh'it I myself fell into at your age, in the days of my romance, 
 when, as I told you at the Warren House, I used to lie under the 
 trees, and watch the rabbits, and read La Fontaine." 
 
 "La Fontaine?" 
 
 " Yes! I will give you a passage of him, which I got by heart, I 
 read it so often. You understand French?" 
 
 "Tolerably," I answered, but coloured sadly, for I thought of 
 Bertha and Gresset. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said he, " for the question; for when I 
 was at Oxford, ninety-nine out of a hundred, though full fraught 
 with Homer, scarcely knew there was such a language. Well, then, 
 my master in philosophy was La Fontaine at nineteen, though I 
 
346 
 
 DK CLIFFORD; 
 
 afterwards discarded him. Hear, therefore, what he says of that 
 retirement which I now know how to value, being greatly above 
 half-way gone in my life, but which, like a booby, I thought in my 
 raptures applied to all ages : 
 
 ' Heureux qui vit chez soi ; 
 De r6gler ses desirs faisant tout son eraploi ! 
 
 II ne sait que par oui-dire, 
 Ge que c'est que la cour, la mer, et ton empire, 
 Fortune, qui nous fait passer devant les yeux, 
 Des dignity, dcs biens que, jusqu'au bout du raonde, 
 On suit, sans que l'effet aux promesses reponde. 
 Desormais je ne bouge, et ferai cent fois raieux.' 
 
 " This last line I was for ever repealing, till bad weather drove 
 me out of the woods, and London, and the life I was born to, and 
 bound to pursue, taught me that premature repose was neither the 
 lot, nor the right, nor the duty of man." 
 
 " That is so like Fothergill," said I (for I found myself getting 
 as familiar with him as he was with me), "that I should have 
 thought him speaking.*" 
 
 "You could not pay me a greater compliment," returned he, 
 "and I hope, therefore, you will defer to my opinion, and not be- 
 lieve what that wise man there (pointing to a bust of Bacon) properly 
 denies, that books will teach the use of books. Their use is to pre- 
 pare you before-hand for acting in the world when you are in it. 
 After you have done with it, you may profit by your experience, 
 and talk with them about it, as if they were old friends and 
 companions. 1 ' 
 
 " At any time good friends and good companions," observed I. 
 "They are, indeed, excellent company, and what an old poet 
 has called them — 
 
 ' Th' assembled souls of all that men held wise '." 
 
 " But the pleasures and benefits of a library have been described 
 at large by the same noble and enlightened person whom I quoted 
 to you on the pleasures of a garden. He observes (Mr. "Manners 
 had brought the book in with, him from the alcove), 4 What a 
 pleasure to see around me whatever the world has produced most 
 worth knowing. When I have at hand all that philosophers, divines, 
 historians, poets, mathematicians, architects understood, digested 
 into the best method and order, communicative of whatever I am 
 most desirous to know, without any constraint upon me, ready to 
 be laid by without offence when weary of them, and to be resumed 
 without ceremony, what would a man give for so easy a friend? 
 And here (he goes on to say) you have collected together the most 
 excellent of all mortals in all ages, of all countries, without being 
 
 : Davenant. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 347 
 
 troubled with either their impertinence, insolence, affectation, 
 moroseness, or pride, — the common failings of knowing, great, 
 and learned men. But as the use of well-chosen books is the most 
 excellent benefit of any thing that it hath pleased God to bestow 
 upon the children of men, so an ill choice of them is, in the opposite 
 extreme, the most pernicious mischief that can be. Good books 
 instruct us in our duty towards God, towards man, and to our- 
 selves : they form the mind to just and proper thoughts, make us 
 good servants to God, good subjects, and useful to the state, both 
 as governors and servants, and whatever else relates to the common 
 advantages of life : ill ones deprave the mind, and have in all 
 those respects quite a contrary effect." " 
 
 "Beautiful, as well as wise," cried I, when Mr. Manners had 
 finished. " It could not be for nothing that this northern Thane, 
 and honour to Sedbergh and Queen's, was made Lord Privy Seal. 
 What you have read of him gives me the idea of perhaps the most 
 attractive character in human nature 5 a really great man, who has 
 successfully served his country in public life, acting up to the 
 dignity of his nature with equal success in retirement." 
 
 "Such an object," observed Mr. Manners, "must, in favour 
 with the gods, be second only to a great man struggling with the 
 storms of fate — who is said, you know, to be their first. Here there 
 were no storms, but a great deal of wisdom, as well as of goodness, 
 to say nothing of his knowledge of books, which, in a courtier and 
 country gentleman, is no mean praise." 
 
 " I observe," said T, " that while he gives all due credit to those 
 which form the mind ' to just and proper thoughts,' he is equally 
 severe on those which deprave the mind, as having a ' quite con- 
 trary effect.' " 
 
 "Too true," returned Manners 5 " how many are there of that 
 sort, and what dangers do not you young people run? I myself 
 know it too well, for I suffered for it-, particularly from those of 
 whom I was most fond — the novelists. The worst is, these seducers, 
 both English and French (Fielding, Smollett, Rousseau), approach 
 us so entirely in the garb of friends, are so set off with wit, humour, 
 agreeableness, and the semblance of virtue, though deeply mingled 
 with vice, that we are taken before we are aware, and incur the 
 woe denounced by the prophet on those who call evil good, and 
 good evil. Like the transformed monsters in Comus, 
 
 ' So perfect is our misery, 
 We boast ourselves more lovely than before.' " 
 
 " ! am afraid that also is too true," said I. 
 
 "It is," he proceeded. "For what boy— what youth— would 
 not wish to be Tom Jones—or Peregrine— or Roderick? though as 
 io these last, the one, with all his pride and spirit, proved himself 
 
348 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 an infamous rascal j the other, not a little of a blackguard. Yet 
 both of them are rewarded with as perfect happiness and success as 
 if they were men of the purest delicacy and honour." 
 
 I was rather startled at these hard remarks on characters which 
 had often engaged all my interest, and so I told Mr. Manners. 
 
 "Why, is it not correct? 1 ' asked he. " Is not even Tom, the 
 favourite of every generous, warm-hearted creature like himself, 
 and of every girl, too, who is allowed to read him, sullied and 
 stained with a meanness which would make a gentleman feel dis- 
 honoured for life? and though capable of the most ardent love and 
 admiration for delicacy, dignity, and virtue, as well as beauty, in 
 Sophia, is he not guilty of the grossest offences against them all — 
 revelling in mere sensuality while seemingly most impressed with 
 real love? In short, is he not like the description of vice in Shak- 
 speare, which, 
 
 ' Though to a radiant angel link'd, 
 Will sate itself in a celestial bed, 
 And prey on garbage?' " 
 
 I had not a word to say against this eloquent tirade, except that, 
 if the object was to paint human nature as it is, its failings ought 
 not to be concealed any more than its virtues. 
 
 To this he answered with quickness: "But why propose the object 
 at all, if it disgust? still more, if not correct in the representation? 
 I never could feel other than disgusted at the picture of a dunghill, 
 or the garbage of a butcher's shop, though ever so well painted; 
 and I blame the painter for proposing it to himself, who must be 
 as nasty in his taste, with all his art, as Swift, with all his wit. But 
 passing this, I deny that the gross and mean conduct of Jones to 
 Lady Bellaston is a truthful representation. It is wholly incom- 
 patible with all the rest of his character for frankness, sincerity, 
 generosity, and independence ; so that the author is here absolutely 
 mistaken, and the illustrious Homer nods. But this, as only affect- 
 ing the author himself, may be forgiven. What is far less pardon- 
 able, is the general effect of the book on the reader, which is to 
 render our usual corrupt habits (by which, I mean, our sensual in- 
 dulgences) absolutely of no consequence to our moral happiness. 
 
 "As to the effect upon females, too, what are we to say? Jones, 
 soiled as he is with dirty, low amours, is properly reproached with 
 them by his mistress. As a delicate palliation, he tells her, that the 
 delicacy of her sex cannot conceive the grossriess of ours; and 
 Sophia, pure as snow, and with fancied firmness, declares that she 
 will never marry a man who is not as incapable as herself of making 
 such a distinction. She therefore requires time-perhaps twelve 
 months— to be convinced of his reformation. What is the result? 
 Before the conversation is over, she consents to marry him the 
 next day. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 340 
 
 " Thus, you see, all that moralists endeavour lo guard against is 
 not only not made hateful, but is recommended by example ; and 
 I need not refer you to Horace's knowledge of mankind, where he 
 says, 
 
 ' Decipit exemplar, vitiis imitabilcV " 
 
 I own I had little lo reply to this attack, new and unexpected as 
 it was; for, in truth, I felt, as my landlord at Oakingham said, 
 dumb-founded; nor, after such an invective against Fielding, 
 could I, as I told Mr. Manners, expect much mercy to Smollett. 
 
 44 Smollett," said he, " does not equal Fielding in knowledge of 
 the heart, and his pictures are too gross to be quite so dangerous. 
 Nobody wishes to imitate Pickle. We turn from him as a spoilt, 
 froward child, and in his attempt upon Emilia, we think him as 
 great a fool as scoundrel : we wish him kicked for being so con- 
 temptible in his iniquity. The picture, too, is absolutely false. Feel- 
 ing as he is represented to do towards Emilia, it is just neither 
 more nor less than impossible that he should conceive the design 
 upon her he does. And what shall we say to his being forgiven and 
 taken back, not only to her heart, but that of her brother, described 
 as so sensitive in every point of honour? No ; the conduct of this 
 once, and I fear still favourite story, is as despicable as a work of 
 art, as it is dangerous and untrue as a picture of manners. As lo the 
 last, what youth that reads it but may say to himself, Let me but 
 once gain a young woman's affectioa, and no vice, dishonour, or 
 infamy I may be guilty of, will deprive me of it. Is this the cha- 
 racter of a virtuous woman? " 
 
 He asked this pointedly \ and I thought of Bertha, when I gave 
 an emphatic " No." 
 
 "Then, as to Roderick," continued Mr. Manners, 44 he had 
 more of both talent and mind than Peregrine : but he sets out a bit 
 of a blackguard, and his livery coat, pestle and mortar habits, and 
 sharper conduct, keep him so almost to the end. We should not 
 like to be compared with him ourselves. For my own part, I think 
 there is too much horse-play in both these famous novels 5 and 
 though I relish broad humour as well as others, I feel that it may 
 be repeated ad nauseam $ and when the novelty of it is faded, and 
 we have closed the book, we are not in a hurry to open it again. 
 I like laughter, bnt cannot laugh at the same joke (particularly a 
 practical one) more than twice, or at farthest thrice. Give me the 
 book which makes you think as well as laugh, and whose sentiment 
 and moral, by addressing your heart and mind, can delight your 
 pensive as well as your merry hours — delectando pariterquc mc- 
 nendo. Such a book may lie upon your table, while the others 
 
 1 That example is a deceitful one which is imitable in its vices. 
 
350 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 range on the higher shelves of your library, and are calculated 
 chiefly for those who, as has been well said, read not so much to 
 assist thought as to avoid thinking. 
 
 " In short, I would rather write one sentence which would give 
 peace to the soul, inspire a virtuous feeling, or call up a happy 
 recollection, than a whole volume of the most refined wit and ge- 
 nius, which, however admired for them, would leave the mind 
 familiar with vice, and consequently lowered in its self-respect." 
 
 I yielded to this, for I felt it myself 5 but seeing Richardson's 
 works in handsome old bindings, I took down Pamela, and ob- 
 served, 
 
 " Probably, from its situation, this author comes under your 
 more favourable description. You will at least not class him among 
 those who you say seduce us into vice." 
 
 "Certainly not," replied he; "and yet I have much to say before 
 I would recommend even him to the study of very young people, 
 which is loo thoughtlessly, I think, done by parents, and guardians, 
 and governesses. For where there are licentious descriptions of inde- 
 cent scenes, though mingled ever so little with moral precepts 
 ever so numerous, I have always observed that the first are 
 more referred to and better remembered than the last. Pamela, 
 therefore, with all its goodness and exhibition of virtue rewarded, is 
 one of the last books I would put into the hands of a very young 
 girl. Why should her pure thoughts — stainless, because ignorant 
 thai there can be such a thing as the seduction of a servant by her 
 master, much more that there are indecencies, such as Richardson, 
 with no sparing hand, lays open to his readers— be turned from the 
 chaste channel in which they have hitherto run? 
 
 " The same may be said of the far-famed Clarissa itself, where 
 there are scenes which no young daughter or sister of mine should 
 ever with my consent, look into. Nor do I agree with Johnson, that 
 Lovelace is made hateful. As Yoltaire said the Devil was Milton's 
 hero, so is Lovelace's wickedness made less detestable by the un- 
 common superiority of his mind over all his fellow rascals in the 
 story. He is able, accomplished, insinuating, bold, always self- 
 possessed, and though highly wicked, never mean. Even when 
 killed, his spirit in the field has something redeeming in it, and we 
 are not so angry with him as we ought to be. In other respects, 
 too, the picture of manners is faulty. The lady herself, though a 
 paragon of virtue, and a dreadful victim, is not too amiable or 
 humble. Before her misfortunes, she is pert and flippant to her 
 family, particularly to her sister, whom she crows over with vulgar 
 vanity. All her letters, too, to her confidante, Miss Howe, shew 
 what, in lower life, and if she had been uneducated, would indicate 
 something very like what we call a minx." 
 
 I was startled still more at this most unlooked-for criticism, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 351 
 
 which I thought completely new and unprecedented, and began a 
 siring of propositions upon the excellent moral precepts and virtuous 
 examples to be found in this classic writer, — when Mr. Manners 
 stopt me. 
 
 ''Spare," said he, " the eloquent effusion which I see is coming, 
 for I allow all Richardson's genius, and above all, his knowledge 
 of the windings and turnings of the heart. He is also most pleasingly 
 dramatic, and , spite of twaddle and priggismin many of his characters, 
 I could shut myself up with him at Selby House, or at Mr. B.'s 
 halls in Bedfordshire or Lincolnshire, and feel that I saw and knew 
 all his heroes and heroines. All I mean is, that there are passages 
 even in him, which, from the danger of example, had better have 
 been kept out of sight. 
 
 " Then as to Rousseau, whom I believe I also named, I need 
 only quote his own preface to the Heloise — ( ' Let no woman of 
 virtue read this work, for if she does she will be lost' ) — to prove 
 that he comes completely within the scope of Lord Lonsdale's ana- 
 thema upon pernicious books. On that account, these should never 
 be read, I should say, by any unmarried woman— certainly not a 
 very young one. But enough of this subject." 
 
 Seeing that he wished to quit it for some other, I said nothing 
 more than what was true — that he had placed it in a new light, 
 and had forced me to agree with him. II made me indeed recall all 
 that my unfortunate friend the pedlar told me, of the effect made 
 upon him by the stories in Gil Bias, and I repeated it to my com- 
 panion. 
 
 This gave Mr. Manners some pleasure, as confirming his opi- 
 nions. It seems, however, (hat notwithstanding the mischiefs he 
 allowed Gil Bias had often occasioned, he was a great admirer of 
 the Seigneur de Santillane; not indeed for his probity, for, as he 
 said, he was what the Duke of Lerma called him — a little of the 
 picaroon; — but for the interest, as well as fidelity, to say nothing 
 of their romance, of his pictures of human nature. At the same 
 lime, I found lhat a principal reason for his love for him was the 
 early recolleclions (for it was one of the earliest books he had read) 
 which the perusal of him always brought along with it. 
 
 The pleasures of these early recollections, of whatever kind, was, 
 it seems, a favourite point with Manners, in his creed as io happi- 
 ness. In his reading, therefore, those books were sure always to 
 please which had first exciled his mind as a child. This he carried 
 so far as to derive no inconsiderable part of" the pleasures from 
 thumbing over the identical volumes, with their plates, figures, or 
 little maps, which had so early engaged him. 
 
 In respect to Gil Bias, which brought on this part of the con- 
 versation, he had almost a mystic regard for the four little duode- 
 cimos which are known to most people. 
 
352 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 "They are soiled and dog's-eared," said he, "but they bring 
 back my youth with a feeling of even affection 5 nor would I ex- 
 change those uncouth old cuts of Sa Seigneurie avec son secre- 
 taire Scipion dans leur caleche ; or, the Chateau of Lirias; or 
 that most notable lover, Don Gaston de Cogollos, guitar in hand, 
 and hat and cloak on peg in the castle of Segovia — no, not for the 
 most splendid edition of all Le Sage's works," 
 
 When I rather wondered at this, he said, " You are yourself too 
 young to want early associations to refresh and soothe you ; but be 
 assured, after having battled with mankind, they are the most ex- 
 quisite and purest pleasures you can enjoy ; for they bring back 
 that happy time of innocence and heart-springing gaiety, before the 
 world has got hold of you, which no success in that world, whether 
 in ambition, or the pursuit of fortune, can ever either equal or 
 recall." 
 
 "Charming recollections," said 1 5 "but can they really com- 
 pensate for having abandoned your career in life? for, as you have 
 hinted, you were once ambitious." 
 
 " I was like Macbeth," said he, "in the days of his innocence, 
 
 *' Not without ambition, but without 
 The illness should attend it.' " 
 
 " Did you find the illness then so early ? " 
 
 " I found, from the struggles of my contemporaries, that their s 
 was made of sterner stuff than mine ; and from the little enjoyment 
 it seemed to give them when attained, to say nothing of strifes and 
 jealousies, I agreed that it was 'of so airy and light a quality, that 
 it was but a shadow's shadow.' " 
 
 " Yet surely a passion for fame is noble. It is 6 the spur that the 
 clear spirit doth raise.' " 
 
 " Yes; but the poet who said so, said likewise, it was an infir- 
 mity, though, as you say, 4 of noble mind.' But I wish not to damp 
 your career, whatever it may be. By all means see mankind, and 
 judge for yourself, and Heaven preserve you from that morbid fas- 
 tidiousness which unfitted me so soon for any thing but the life I 
 now lead. I own, in a worldly point of view, it was a great fault." 
 
 " It should seem so," said 1 5 " and the world must lament it." 
 
 In this I was most sincere, for my respect for his mind rose with 
 every part of our conversation. 
 
 " It only moves my wonder," added I, " that you should so soon 
 abandon such an incentive to virtue as fame, whether, an infirmity 
 or not." 
 
 "Why, after all," observed he, " Fame is but a sorry jade— a 
 liar, and a jilt. How many hundreds, who have climbed to the top 
 of her ladder, have either tumbled off of themselves, or been pushed 
 off by others, or by a sly jerk of her own? What has become of the 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 353 
 
 Harleys, the Pulteneys ? What became of Swift, growling in ba- 
 nishment for thirty years? What did all Bolingbroke's fine parts do 
 for him? Why did he leave the Loire, and come back to the 
 Thames, merely to suffer a ten years 1 fever of disappointment, and 
 then return? Surely, then, ambition is but a phantom, and some- 
 times a very ugly one. Even Caesar, in his highest glory, felt it ; for 
 as says another poet, 
 
 4 Fame is the shade of Immortality ; 
 And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught, 
 Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp. 
 Consult th' ambitious; 'tis ambition's cure. 
 And is this all ? cried Caesar, in his height, 
 Disgusted '.' 
 
 No 5 the calm recollections of what I was, before I had advanced to 
 manhood, are worth all that I have since seen and felt, twenty times 
 over." 
 
 " You would, perhaps, even wish for your school-days again ? " 
 
 " Most assuredly. Not a day passes in this solitude of mine, 
 cheerful as it is, in which I do not indulge that wish, from the re- 
 miniscences it brings of Ihose happy hours, 
 
 4 When all was innocence and all was gay, 
 And trifles charm'd, for every month was May.' 
 
 Or, in better language still, 
 
 1 When nature pleased, for life itself was new, 
 And the heart promised what the fancy drew.' " 
 
 Pleased with these quotations, as well as the sentiment, and seeing 
 him pause, I begged him to proceed, which he did. 
 
 " That is not," said he, " now my case ; but here I sit, some- 
 times by the hour, revolving in my mind, now life is fast advancing, 
 all that once made life so pleasing. You see these portraits and land- 
 scapes. I want them not to recall the scenes and feelings with which 
 they are associated, for they are always present to me \ but they add 
 a zest and vividness to my recollections of those who are gone, upon 
 which, now that the pangs occasioned by their loss are softened by 
 time, I -absolutely feast. He whom you are looking at, who has an 
 air all over gentleman, honourable, kind, and good, was my ear- 
 liest and most loved friend. In fact, we were schoolfellows, had the 
 same pleasures, and shared the same sorrows 5 and I might say, as 
 Milton did of Lawes, in that charming Lycidas, 
 
 4 For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill, 
 Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.' " 
 
 He then pointed out to me all the rich and expressive features of 
 the portrait, which, in truth, exhibited, as he had intimated, in 
 
 ' Young. Night 7. 
 I. 
 
 23 
 
354 DE CLIFFORD ; OR, THE CONSTANT MA.N. 
 
 mien and counlenance, one of the most perfect gentlemen I had 
 ever seen; the most engaging frankness united with sense and de- 
 cision of character ; so that Raeburn (for he was Scotch) had never 
 painted any thing more imposing. I was somewhat moved myself 
 at the emotion he shewed when he said this, and it prompted me 
 to ask whose portrait it was. 
 
 "You could not have known him," replied he, "for he must 
 have died soon after you were born, and besides that, spent his last 
 years upon his paternal estate in Scotland, where he dealt out kind- 
 ness and help to all who wanted it, and devoted himself to the train- 
 ing up of a numerous and accomplished family to the same virtues 
 as adorned himself. Yes • he was, what I have called him, my ear- 
 liest and best-loved friend. At school we were inseparable." 
 
 I felt a kind of shudder at this intimation, for I thought of Fol- 
 jambe — with what recollections may be supposed — and rather has- 
 tily asked, if the world, after school-days were over, allowed them 
 to continue that happy friendship? 
 
 I know not whether I was agitated when I asked this; but eyeing 
 me seriously, though kindly, he cried, " Is it even so ? Is the world 
 known to you in these respects so soon? Have you already set your 
 heart upon what you thought a kindred heart, and lost it? Have 
 you so soon been disappointed ? But pardon me, if I am rude, I 
 have no right — " 
 
 He was here a little embarrassed, but soon recovered, and said, 
 
 " In reply to your question, the world never made a difference, 
 except to separate our persons ; our hearts remained always the 
 same, for Sir M. S. St — — I (and he here named a very ancient ba- 
 ronet of Scotland) was as constant in his friendships, as in all other 
 good graces that grace a gentleman. In fact, the original of this 
 picture seems to have been born, as the picture itself seems to hav*» 
 been painted, 
 
 ' To give the world assurance of a man.' f! 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME, 
 
DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
PRINTED BY CRAPELET, 9, RUE DE VAUGIRARD, 
 
DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TREMAINE," « HUMAN LIFE," etc. 
 
 Cum magnis vixi, cum plebeiis, cum omnibus; 
 Ut homines noscerem, et meipsum imprimis. 
 
 Dr. King's Epitaph upon Himself, 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 PARIS, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY A. AND W. GALIGNANI AND CX, 
 
 N° 18, RUE VIVIENNE. 
 4841. 
 
DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OF THE FINE THINGS WHICH PASSED BETWEEN DE CLIFFORD AND MR. MANNERS 
 ON THE SUBJECT OF SOLITUDE. 
 
 Now I see the mystery of your loneliness. 
 Shakspeare.— All's Well that Ends Well. 
 
 The conversation related in the last chapter ceased for a while ; 
 for my kind and sensitive host fell into a reverie upon the last sub- 
 ject, from which, being myself moved by the thought of a very dif- 
 ferent friendship, I did not seek to disturb him. Such meditation 
 upon the departed dead I held to be sacred, and I cast my eyes 
 upon his books, until he should return to himself 
 
 A few minutes restored him, and he found me turning over the 
 leaves of Zimmerman, misleader of poor Rycroft, whom it forced to 
 walk ten miles a-day to remedy the mischief it had done him. 
 
 "I presume this is a favourite of yours?" said I, seeing him 
 quite again in the disposition to converse. 
 
 "He is too great an enthusiast," replied he, "for mere sober 
 reason to follow. It requires a high-wrought imagination, like his 
 own, to be affected by him 5 some youthful poet, when in love, 
 perhaps like yourself; some disappointed or fallen Wolsey, whose 
 " robe and integrity to heaven is all he has left ; 1 or some Timon, 
 whose wealth, though scattered like water, could not secure him 
 one single friend : — these are they who may devour the pages of 
 the German, and feed their own feelings with his warm romance. 
 Nor are they altogether without attraction. But let no man of com- 
 mon mould, or every-day character, think he will here find the 
 truth of things. As a relaxation, when the bow is too much bent, 
 temporary solitude is delightful — as a permanent position, without 
 object, it is vapid. Like bed, a relief from fatigue or illness 5 but 
 11. 1 
 
2 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 what should we say to a man who, without a cause, lies a-becf 
 all day ?" 
 
 " And yet, if I may take the liberty of remarking it," said I, " I 
 understand you shun company." 
 '* Flat and common-place, I do." 
 " Can none of your neighbours please you ? " 
 " Very few." 
 "May I ask, why?" 
 
 " Because they are flat and common-place." 
 I felt answered ; but observed, u You, however, do read Zim- 
 merman." 
 
 " As a votary of solitude myself, though of a far different temper, 
 I sometimes look into him, as into other men of genius : but I am 
 quite content with my own practical jog-trot notions, which have 
 withdrawn me from certain scenes of the world, which had ceased 
 to interest me, and for no other reason. I pretend not, therefore, 
 to any such dignified seclusion as is, perhaps, attributed to me ; I 
 have neither particular disgusts nor particular refinements. I how- 
 ever defer to every word on the subject to be found in a delightful 
 book, still golden, as it ought to be, in every thinking or classical 
 mind, though, to the disgrace of the age, falling fast into neglect 
 among those coxcombs who think there can be a fashion in sterl- 
 ing literature." 
 
 With that he took down a volume of the Spectator, and made me 
 read from a paper by Addison, as follows : 
 
 " True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp 
 and noise ; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's 
 self-, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few 
 select companions : it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts 
 groves and fountains, fields and meadows : in short, it feels every 
 thing that it wants within itself, and receives no addition from mul- 
 titudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, false happi- 
 ness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon 
 her. She does not receive any satisfaction from the applauses which 
 she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. 
 She flourishes in courts and palaces, theatres and assemblies, and 
 has no existence but when she is looked upon 1 ." 
 
 " I also feel every word of this," said I, " and have often ex- 
 claimed, in the walk at Maudlin, planted by him who wrote it, 
 
 ' O ! lost to virtue ! lost to manly thought 
 Who think it solitude to be alone! ' 
 
 But, if the truth were known, this was perhaps owing more to lazi- 
 ness, and thinking company too often annoying, than any senti- 
 mental finery elevating me above my fellows." 
 
 1 I?0. 15. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 3 
 
 44 I am certainly not one of those who think any company belter 
 than none," observed Mr. Manners. "Even in town, I have felt 
 myself alone, only without the freedom and independence of being 
 so ; for I agree in the opinion of, I think, Seneca — 4 Magna cwi- 
 tas, magna solitudo^ and certainly incline to thai of Bacon, 
 < Crowds are not company ; faces are but a gallery of pictures, and 
 talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love,' 
 
 " It was because I had had too much of this gallery, and tinkling 
 cymbal, without the love, that I thought I would try my fate here, 
 where they would not interrupt me, nor I them. For I fully admit 
 that an old man, who has lost his powers of amusing or interesting, 
 has no right to be welcomed by the world 5 so you see I am not 
 one of those coxcombs or affected hermits who retire because, as 
 they say, the world has used them ill. I did not affect to be either 
 Bolingbroke or Rousseau." 
 
 " I think you are the very genius of good sense," said I, " which 
 neither of those two were ; yet, if you will forgive me, with a spice 
 of the melancholy Jacques." 
 
 " No," said he ; " for though I love the forest of Ardennes, I do 
 not, like him, love melancholy better than laughing, but rather 
 laughing better than melancholy 5 and if I laugh at many for re- 
 maining in the world, I allow they have a perfect right to laugh at 
 me for quitting it. On both sides I uphold the maxim, 4 let those 
 laugh that win. 1 " 
 
 46 Yet Horace, as it should seem," said I, 44 calls retirement the 
 oblivion, not the enjoyment, of life 5 he dwells upon sleep and va- 
 cant hours as some of its best pleasures — 
 
 ' Nunc sorano et inertibus horis.' 
 
 Yet I should think that to sleep away life, and have nothing to 
 do, not only unworthy, but unhappy." 
 
 44 And I think so too," returned he, 44 and that most heartily; 
 but your construction of the passage in Horace is not mine. For his 
 sleep and leisure are but temporary relaxations after a life of trouble, 
 and, as you ought to have added, the 
 
 ' Sollicitae jucunda oblivia vitae.' 
 
 Besides, he numbers the veterum libros among his pleasures, 
 which I take to make a considerable, nay, all the difference. As to 
 the inertibus horis, except as 4 refreshment after toil, ease after 
 pain,' never was there a greater mistake than to suppose that to 
 have nothing to do is the necessary accompaniment of solitude. On 
 the contrary, the saying of Cicero 1 may be proved by every man 
 who embraces that life, if he pleases; though I allow many do not 
 
 INunquam minus solus quam solus. 
 
A DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 please, and then, of all men, they are most miserable. What phi- 
 losopher was it who, being told he had no soul because he could not 
 bear company, replied, 4 And you have none, because you cannot 
 bear being alone?" 1 
 
 " The theory," said I, " is perfect, but pray enlighten me more 
 as to the practice." 
 
 " The whole," returned he, " is summed up in the little word 
 employment" 
 
 "Gf what sort?" 
 
 " No matter, provMed it be innocent." 
 
 " Bui employment in solitude! What impetus can there be for it? 
 How is it to be brought about ? " 
 
 " Ask Cowper. I do not much like his poetry, but I have no ob 
 jeclion to the sense and goodness of sentiment in what I call his nu- 
 merous prose. 
 
 4 How various his employments whom the world 
 Calls idle, and who justly in return 
 Esteems the busy world an idler too ! 
 Friends, books, a garden, and perhaps his pen; 
 Delightful industry enjoyed at home, 
 And Nature, in her cultivated trim 
 Drest to his taste, inviting him abroad.' " 
 
 "As you understand them so well," said I, "favour me with 
 some of the details of these employments." 
 
 " Let us suppose fishing," answered he, " of all employments in 
 the world, to those who are not fishers, seemingly the most me- 
 lancholy, yet nothing, by those who are, is more stoutly denied. 
 A great moral philosopher, who has just appeared 1 , calls it a 
 c cheerful solitude. 7 Well, shut up a real lover of angling in his 
 fishing-house ; let him pass three parts of his daylight at his sport, 
 and the fourth in mending or making his tackle, the man is happy." 
 
 " But suppose he is not successful?" 
 
 " No matter 5 he is perpetually buoyed up by that irrepressible 
 support of us all, Hope, and that alone is happiness, greater oflen 
 than fruition itself." 
 
 " But there is another source of interest to minds occupied with 
 greater objects, seemingly more trifling than this, which yet pro- 
 duces more real satisfaction to private feelings than many which ap- 
 pear far more important." 
 
 " 1 long to know it," said I, 
 
 4C It is the correction of bad habits, even though so trifling to men 
 struggling in the busy world, that they may despise any care about 
 them. I see you are surprised," added he, "but I do not mean 
 what perhaps you think vices, or even very great faults, but merely 
 such as concern what I would call the 4 petite morale.' " 
 
 « Paley. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 5 
 
 "Pray explain. 11 
 
 " Why, for example, take a man of an irritable habit, inclined 
 naturally to be overset with little things. In the working-day world, 
 brimful as it is of briers, how little chance is there of cure, when 
 every thing that occurs, and every man almost he meets, annoys 
 instead of soothes him. He has not time or leisure to philosophize 
 and recover. Solitude, by exempting him from all extrinsic acces- 
 sion to his malady, gives him full liberty to reason himself out of it, 
 and superintend his cure, till it is perfected. New habits are thus 
 acquired, and the old ones extinguished, during the process of which, 
 how interesting the employment ! " 
 
 " Have you ever seen an instance of this? 11 I inquired. 
 
 " I have both seen and felt it in my own person, and can safely say 
 — Ecce signum! How often, in the walks of the garden we have 
 left, have I lectured myself on this and other defects, till the peace- 
 ful scene about me, and my own reason combined, have made me 
 ashamed of myself, and at last I felt a perfect reform, and have bid 
 defiance to spleen ever since. What, indeed, in the way of occupa- 
 tion, does not the man of solitude in every other respect owe to his 
 garden! What interest so varying as well as so intense as what he 
 finds there ; insomuch, that the very words solitude, sameness, mo- 
 notony, seem banished his vocabulary. 
 
 " Hence the same philosopher I have just now quoted in praise of 
 fishing, in his account of the various employments that may consti- 
 tute happiness, enumerates among them 'the growing of a flower, 
 or even the raising of a cucumber 1 .' But let me ask, are you fond 
 of music?" 
 
 46 Fond of it, but not an artist. 1 ' 
 
 "Then you lose one of the sweetest, and, next to books, the 
 sweetest resource of in or out-of-door solitude. In doors, . what did 
 not his organ do for blind Milton ; out of doors, who ever felt alone 
 that heard the nightingale, 
 
 ' Warbling at eve when all the woods are still?' 
 
 44 Ah ! those still woods! To a man of contemplation , what is 
 there in the most brilliant scenes, the silken sheen, the jewels rare, 
 the excitement of ' the royal feast for Persia won,' to compare one 
 single moment with the pure and happy feelings which an evening 
 walk in them produces? But he who can thus walk, and love to 
 watch the sinking day, and is soothed by the twilight, must be 
 innocent. Solitude indeed is no place for the wicked." 
 
 " I beseech you," said I, seeing him pause, " go on." 
 
 44 Well," proceeded he, u to come to something of a lower flight 
 — if you are a sportsman, I need not talk to you of shooting, with 
 
 ' He adds, however, the writing of a book, which (cjaudeo referens) beguiles many an 
 hour. 
 
6 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 no companion but your dog. If you have any little handycraft arts, 
 if merely for amusement, but especially if for purposes of utility, 
 where can your interests cease? You may be a carpenter with your 
 tool chest 5 a turner with your lathe 5 you may make baskets, weave 
 nets, knit garters, or twist whiplashes like Will Wimble 5 or, if fond 
 of the politer arts, you may try to paint like Sir George Beaumont. 
 
 " What shall I say if you are a farmer? Go to your Virgil on 
 the employments of his Agricola, when confined to the house in 
 bad weather, which is a sort of solitude. 
 
 ' Multa forent qua mox coelo properanda sereno, 
 Maturare datur : durum procudit arator 
 Vomeris obtusi dentem, cavat arbore lintres, 
 Aut pecori signum, aut numeros impressit acervis. 
 Exacuunt alii^vallos, furcasque bicornes '.' 
 
 Here is a picture of employment for you, which must for ever 
 banish the vapours. We see the honest man in his cottage or barn, 
 perhaps hear him whistling while sharpening his stakes or mark- 
 ing his sacks." 
 
 "A pleasing assemblage," observed I*, "but will these fill up 
 the time of the man of education — he who shuns vacuity of mind 
 as his worst enemy?" 
 
 "Have you not answered yourself," returned he shrewdly, 
 " when you suppose him a man of education ? I began with an un- 
 educated man, because most difficult to provide for. Let in mind, 
 books of science, natural history, polite literature, moral philoso- 
 phy, and, above all, religion, and your man of retirement is amply 
 provided for." 
 
 "By religion," asked I, " do you mean devotion, or the study 
 of divinity?" 
 
 " O ! both, both," replied he, with some fervour. 
 
 "My reason for asking," continued I, "is an interested one. 
 For though I have always found questions in divinity, young as I 
 am, more exciting than all others, yet a layman seems to me to be 
 so much in need of assistance, that he can do little without it, and 
 I have therefore been glad to take refuge in authority, and believe 
 what I have been told by my Bible, and my betters, in their mode 
 of expounding it, without examination." 
 
 " It was only becoming at your age," said he, " and comfortable 
 to every one, particularly those who are busy with the world. As 
 
 • Thus paraphrased by Dryden : 
 
 ' But when cold weather and continued rain 
 The lab'ring husband in his house restrain, 
 Let him forecast his work with timely care, 
 Which else is huddled when the skies arc fair; 
 Or hollow trees for boats, or number o'er 
 His sacks, or measure his increasing store ; 
 Or sharpen stakes,' etc. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 7 
 
 we advance, however, towards lhat period when the near view of 
 futurity becomes ten times more interesting, and a thousand times 
 more awful, religion is every thing; while, important as I have 
 described them, all other things are nothing. An inquiring mind 
 then seeks convictions of its own, and the power to do this is the 
 pre-eminent and almost exclusive advantage of solitude. Hence, 
 that shrewd Paley, whom I cannot too often quote ( and here Mr. 
 Manners took down his work), has this emphatic passage : — £ A 
 man who is in earnest in his endeavours after the happiness of a 
 future state has, in this respect, an advantage over all the world. 
 For he has constantly before his eyes an object of supreme impor- 
 tance, productive of perpetual engagement and activity, and of 
 which the pursuit (which can be said of no pursuit besides) lasts 
 him to his life's end * " 
 
 Mr. Manners then told me, with an air of great satisfaction, that 
 he had already derived from his retreat, and the opportunities it 
 had given him for uninterrupted meditation, benefits which were 
 incalculable, and which all the power and wealth in the world 
 could never balance. 
 
 " It has already, 1 ' said he, " restored me to the confidence ne- 
 cessary for the sweetest and most interesting of all enjoyments— 
 the power, without the alloy of miserable doubt, of conversing with 
 your God. Ever indeed, like you, from my youth up, though not 
 always with the same unction, have I felt the force and beauty of 
 those lines of our most serious poet : 
 
 * A soul in commune with her God is heaven; 
 Feels not the tumults and the shocks of life, 
 The whirls of passion, or the strokes of heart.' 
 
 * A deity believed is joy begun ; 
 A deity adored is joy advanced ; 
 A deity beloved is joy matured a . " 
 
 M This, however, with the most satisfied minds, is sadly broken 
 in upon by the distractions of the world, whether through business 
 or dissipation. For, let him be ever so devoutly disposed from na- 
 tural bias, a man absorbed by ambition or business has not the time, 
 and a man of pleasure has not the disposition, to seek out his Creator, 
 and converse with his attributes. But ifheisraoz so disposed, or so 
 biassed 5 if his mind is unhappily wavering in a labyrinth of uncer- 
 tainty and contending arguments 5 in short, if it is not made up wha t 
 to believe and what to reject, on subjects paramount to all others in 
 the heart of a thinking man, such a man, while immersed in the 
 world, can have no hope of ever seeing land. He will never be 
 cheered by the happy sound of « Italiam, Italiam." " 
 
 ' Moral Philosophy, 1, 34, 
 3 Young. 
 
8 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 I fully assented k> this proposition, and was pleased with its clas- 
 sical allusion, when Mr. Manners went on : — 
 
 "Crowns and sceptres, and the utmost refinements of luxury, 
 nay, the most dazzling splendours of fame, sink into absolute no- 
 thingness in comparison with this. In the hey-day and buoyancy 
 of youth, indeed, and the struggles which even duty imposes upon 
 our manhood in its meridian, we are too often careless, and, per- 
 haps, think it pardonable to neglect the subjects which I have 
 called paramount to all others. As our friend, the brave and natural 
 Trim, explained his religious neglects : ' When a soldier has passed 
 a whole day up to his knees in water in the trenches, — perhaps 
 without his dinner— watching in the face of the enemy, he has 
 little time to say his prayers.' " 
 
 44 But there is a time for all things, and he is fortunate, who, if 
 he feels the want of self, or other instruction, and that the seduc- 
 tions of a dissipated or tumultuous, and therefore a thoughtless life, 
 prevent him from righting his vessel and getting into port — he is 
 fortunate, I say, who can retire from that life to seek after truth, as 
 I have done, without disturbance." 
 
 Mr. Manners then went on to tell me that though his early youth, 
 with no other helps than the common instruction derived from 
 church and catechism, was marked by a belief in all the great tenets 
 of religion, because, like me, he never had a thought of question- 
 ing them, and was happy in what he might call his ignorance; 
 yet afterwards, in his meridian, and when too much occupied with 
 the world to give his inquiries fair play, a gloom came over him 
 in the shape of scepticism, for which, as he had always viewed it 
 unhurt before, he could not account. 
 
 " I had read Hume, Bolingbroke, and Voltaire," said he, "at 
 twenty, and, as I thought, had triumphed over their sophisms, and 
 was invulnerable to their sneers. Most strange it was, that at forty 
 I myself suggested doubts to my own mind, which I did not answer, 
 because I was too much plunged in dissipation. There were points, 
 too, of belief demanded of me by divines and commentators, about 
 which it had never occurred to me to hesitate, because, as you 
 say, I look all upon authority, and. coursing gaily down the stream 
 of life, I had neither leisure nor inclination to criticise their sound- 
 ness. And far happier was I in this unlimited confidence, than 
 when, from an eagerness for still more light, my vision became in- 
 distinct. For I began to impose upon myself the impossible task of 
 reconciling contending divines upon articles of faith, which I had 
 formerly believed necessary for our safety, but which I found were 
 deemed so on grounds which to me appeared any thing but firm. 
 To settle when to follow and when to leave these instructors of ours ; 
 to separate enthusiasm from rational piety, cool sense from effer- 
 vescing zeal, has formed much of the business of this retreat ; and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 9 
 
 I trust I may say my efforts have been successful, for they have left 
 me happy and confiding, not now upon authority, but conviction. 
 It is best not to doubt 5 but if you do, how much better to believe 
 upon cool examination and sincere persuasion, To retirement do I 
 owe this happiness. Can I give a stronger reason for loving it?" 
 
 " You would make any one love it," observed I, " as I am sure 
 you have me; though, if ambition be honourable, which we are 
 told it is, the ambitious man can never be a votary ; there is not 
 room for him in solitude." 
 
 " For mere worldly ambition," said he, 44 by which I mean a 
 struggle after power, preferment, or riches, certainly not. All this 
 must be laid aside, or the recluse is a gone man. For what does the 
 wise man say ? ' ambition is like choler, which is an humour, that 
 maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be 
 not stopt. But if it be stopt, and cannot have its way, it becomelh 
 adust, and thereby maligne and venomous" 
 
 " Now if a man continues ambitious in solitude, the humour is 
 stopt, and the, then wise man, adds he, becomes secretly discontent, 
 looks upon men and matters with an evil eye, and is best pleased 
 when things go backward '. Bacon, however, neglects a corollary 
 which he might have added to this, that public men, when out of 
 office, if they have the least hankering left, should never betake 
 themselves to solitude for consolation, for they will certainly then 
 become adust, and 4 best pleased when things go backward.' " 
 
 44 But what, may I ask," said I, " is to secure them from the 
 hankering you have mentioned?" 
 
 He answered, "The objects for which alone they ought to retire. 
 If their seclusion be adopted in a pet, as it often is 5 if from caprice, 
 if without sufficient stores, heaven help the hermit, for he cannot 
 help himself, but will sink down into a gross and unworthy sen- 
 sualist-, or, at very best, a listless burthen to himself and all about 
 him." 
 
 "I should like, however, to hear more," said I, "of those 
 worthier and higher pursuits in solitude, which, according to its 
 admirers, so ennoble it." 
 
 "Look around you," he answered, "and if you cannot there find 
 both employment and interest for a hundred lives, I have thrown 
 away my pains and money on my library to no purpose. You must, 
 however, often impose upon yourself the subjects you see around 
 you, as duties, not as mere amusement. Science and philosophy 
 must be your substantials ; light summer reading only the garnish. 
 If you adopt this plan, perhaps, you would wish the day longer than 
 it is, even in solitude. But, woe to that day, if you confine your 
 reading to trifles : for I need not remind you, 
 
 Bacon's Essays. Art. 'Ambition. 
 
10 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 ' Si non 
 
 Intendes a mm um studiis et rebus honestis, 
 Invidia vel amore vigil torquebere ' 
 
 So says Horace. 
 
 ' Loquor de docto nomine et erudito, cui vivere est cogitare \ ' 
 
 So says Cicero. 
 
 • But the first and noblest occupation of solitude is also its happiest, being no 
 less than nature, and nature's God.' 
 
 "On this part of the subject Zimmerman shines; and one who 
 wrote before him, and quite as well, if not better." 
 
 With this, Mr. Manners took Herve/s Meditations from one 
 of the shelves. 
 
 " Start not," said he, "at my inlroducing this quaint old author 
 to you, whom, perhaps, you young Oxonians never read, or despise 
 if you do. Rest assured, however, that in this fanciful, bul most 
 devoted Christian, there is more, both of genius and poetry, than 
 in any of the correct and smooth, but soul-less gentry of the 
 present age." 
 
 Mr. Manners then turned to the Contemplation on Night, and 
 read : — "The world is a troubled ocean, and who can erect stable 
 purposes on its troubled waves? The world is a school of wrong, 
 and who does not feel himself warping to its pernicious influences? 
 On this sea of glass, how insensibly we slide from our own sted- 
 fastness? Some sacred truth, which was struck in lively characters 
 on our souls is obscured, if not obliterated. Some worthy resolution, 
 which heaven had wrought in our breasts, is shaken, if not over- 
 thrown. Some enticing vanity, which we had solemnly renoun- 
 ced, again practises its wiles. How often has an angry glance 
 kindled a fever in our hearts? How often has a word of ap- 
 plause dropt luscious poison in our ears, or some disrespectful 
 expression raised a gust of passion in our bosom? Our in- 
 nocence is of so lender a constitution, that it suffers in the crowd ; 
 our purity of so delicate a complexion, that it scarce touches on the 
 world without contracting a stain. We see, we hear with peril." 
 
 " To me," said I, on Mr. Manners pausing, " however forcible 
 and eloquent, this is new and I shall begin to think myself like 
 the bourgeois gentilhomme, who had talked prose all his life with- 
 out knowing it 5 for I find I have been living amid danger and 
 corruption with equal ignorance." 
 
 1 ' Unless you light your early lamp to find 
 A moral book ; unless you form your mind 
 To nobler studies, you shall forfeit rest; 
 And love or envy shall distract your breast.' 
 
 Francis' Hor. Ep. 1, ?., 3, 7. 
 
 a ' I speak of a learned, well-instructed man, with whom to think is to live.' 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 11 
 
 "Your age," replied Mr. Manners gravely, " exempt you, 1 
 trust, from that suspicion. You have, in fact, been scarcely in the 
 world we are talking of-, but to me the picture is no more than just, 
 both as to men and women. How many are there of either, who 
 ever seriously reflect upon what they are about, or what they are 
 pursuing, except that it is pleasure, or business, or an object of 
 ambition? They seem all meteors, streaming on the troubled air, 
 without knowing where they are to rest, and, provided they shine, 
 perfectly content. Who of all who meet daily at While's, or Brooks's, 
 or at the levee, or at dinners, or the Opera, or the House, ever 
 think of what their nature, their hearts, or their God require of 
 them 5 satisfied if they shock not the customs of society by very 
 gross faults, which would drive them from it, but totally indifferent 
 as to the rewards of conscience or of self-approbation? Is there one 
 of these who ever, during this career, lifts his thoughts to heaven, 
 or thinks of conversing with his God? Is not the sole and absorbing 
 topic (that which has the ascendant for the moment), whose dinner 
 is best, how best to shine in a society of fashionables, how to keep 
 a place, or how turn out the ministers? 
 
 " If you reproach them with this, far from disputing it, or even 
 defending themselves from the attack, they will be indifferent to its 
 truth, and coolly reply, 4 defendit numerus.' Not one of these can 
 say with the Psalmist, c I pour out my heart by myself 5' not one 
 communes with that heart in his chamber and is still." 
 
 I protested, what was true, my incapacity to judge of all this, 
 but Mr. Manners saying it, I told him I would lake it for granted, 
 and suppose Hervey was right in what he said of the world. 
 
 "Be assured then," he continued, " he is equally right in what 
 he says of solitude as a contrast 5 — and he read on : — ' Here safety 
 dwells. Every meddling and intrusive avocation is secluded. Silence 
 holds the door against the strife of tongues, and all the impertinences 
 of idle conversation. The busy swarm of vain images and cajoling 
 temptations, which beset us with a buzzing importunity amidst the 
 gaieties of life, are chased by these thickening shades. Here I may, 
 without disturbance, commune with my own heart, and learn the 
 best of sciences, to know myself '. Here the soul may rally her 
 dissipated powers, and grace recover its native energy. This is 
 the opportunity to rectify every evil impression 5 to expel the poison 
 and guard against the contagion of corrupting examples. This is the 
 place where I may with advantage apply myself to subdue the rebel 
 within j and be master, not of a sceptre, but of myself. Throng 
 then, ye ambitious, the levees of the powerful ; / will be punctual 
 in my assignation with solitude. To a mind intent upon its own 
 improvement, solitude has charms incomparably more engaging 
 lhan the entertainments of a theatre or the honours of a drawing- 
 room. I said solitude ! But am I then alone?' 
 
12 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 " A soiemn question/' observed Manners, u to which he gives a 
 solemn and awful answer, for he says, and says truly, that 6 God 
 and his angels are always with him, in him, and about him.' And 
 this, in fact, is the real advantage of solitude, particularly in the 
 country, that it every where prompts reflections as to nature and 
 its author, which cannot find place in towns. Walton would never 
 have been what he was, but for his country walks : they made every 
 thing to look gladness and health, and beat all that the most costly 
 art ever effected. He who can properly enjoy them, has really the 
 
 ' Vita solutorum misera ambitione gravique.' " 
 
 I felt this to be equally true and affecting, particularly when my 
 companion went on : — 
 
 u Can any man, thinking thus of the world, and his retreat from 
 it, ever feel that retreat irksome or vacant? There are moments, 
 indeed, worth a thousand pounds, when, free from bodily com- 
 plaint, mental uneasiness, or mental fear, in love with God, and 
 in charity with man, we feel an exuberant felicity which we cannot 
 define, but which makes us pour out our souls in genuine thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 " Such moments, however," continued he, ''belong not to the 
 inhabitants of the club-room or the denizen of office $ they come 
 but to those who live in part, at least, a contemplative life, and much 
 alone 5 and such is the sweetest charm, as well as the most valuable 
 property, of the solitude we are discussing. For such a person, thus 
 fitted for it, though he appear the idlest and most unoccupied of 
 men, is in fact the most busy 5 his body may seem a fixture, but 
 his thoughts, his interests, are all in motion. He has a mule but 
 observing eye, seemingly bent on vacancy, but no vacancy to him j 
 for he will see, within the mere walls of his room, the whole per- 
 haps of the peopled earth, from the beginning of time, passing in 
 review before his intellect; he will meditate on the nature and 
 history of man and particularly on his own, in which he will dis- 
 cover a thousand minute traits which had escaped him in the world. 
 If good, he will rejoice in them ; if bad, he will amend them 5 and 
 thus, though he stir not for hours from the fire in winter, or a 
 garden bench in summer, yet is not his time misspent" 
 
 My instructor said this with an unction that proved his sincerity, 
 and only made the picture more impressive. It is certain I felt my 
 veneration for him increase at every word he spoke, and I was, 
 however alive to the sound, sorry when a most deep-toned bell from 
 the top of the house, and echoed from the woodland below, an- 
 nounced that dinner was on the table. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OF THE GOOD DINNER WHICH SOLITUDE MAY FURNISH TO THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD IT, 
 AND THE FURTHER HISTORY OF MR. MANNERS. 
 
 We have a trifling, foolish banquet toward. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Romeo and Juliet, 
 
 Our repast was simplex munditiis; unless the beautiful Sevre in 
 which the viands, and the fine old Dresden in which the dessert 
 were served, might be said to savour a little more of magnificence 
 than neatness. 
 
 Be that as it will, it is the property of elegance always to please, 
 and as nothing forbade it here, I own I allowed myself to enjoy al! 
 that it is so calculated to add to the usual attraction of an excellent 
 dinner. There was an exquisite soup ; the promised chicken was 
 most savoury, and done to a turn • and claret like a ruby, and 
 foaming Saint Peray, which my host dealt out liberally from an 
 embossed silver ice-pail, crowned the feast. 
 
 Much as I was occupied, I could not help contrasting the scene 
 with that in the kitchen of the Jolly Angler, and at the Ordinary of 
 the Royal Oak \ and I thought, and began to believe, my new-found 
 cousin and preceptor agreed with me in thinking that the sim- 
 plicities of nature were not incompatible with the luxuries of art, 
 particularly at dinner-lime. 
 
 If ever the mollia tempora fandi prevail, it is at a good dinner 5 
 and it was upon the want of it that Coriolanus's friend Menenius 
 laid the blame of all his faults with the mob : — 
 
 " He had not dined; , 
 The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then 
 We pout upon the morning." 
 
 Heaven knows, there was here no pouting 5 for, exclusive of the 
 banquet before us, to which Mr. Manners did as much justice as 
 myself, our different conversations had excited the good humour 
 of us both : mine, from having witnessed such cultivated talents in 
 my host-, his, for having so well exercised them. 
 
 One reason more, in regard to myself, was the secret satisfaction 
 I felt in the so unexpected discovery of my relationship to him, 
 and the frank good-will with which he acknowledged it. This was 
 repeated several limes ; for he never replenished his glass but he 
 called me cousin, and wished our better acquaintance. 
 
 Of what might be the consequence of this, I had no precise, or 
 indeed any idea 5 but I felt a sort of secret consciousness of some- 
 thing good that time might reveal, the nature of which was confused 
 
14 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 but flattering (thanks to my sanguine temper), nor couid I pre- 
 vent a favourable vision of the world from rising in the distance to 
 my view. 
 
 My reverie of a minute, upon this subject, when the departure of 
 the servants left us to our wine and fruit, was interrupted by my 
 host, who observed, 
 
 44 We talked before dinner of the force of early associations, to 
 which, perhaps, from the few trifling instances I gave of them, you 
 thought me a votary. What will you say when I tell you that it is 
 to them I owe my being here — to the abandonment of a very diffe- 
 rent and much finer place in the north?" 
 
 44 I heard," said 1 44 from the omniscient Gayford, that you pre- 
 ferred this, because you were born and bred here, to some fine seat 
 you had elsewhere." 
 
 44 He was no more than right," replied Mr. Manners. 44 Black- 
 down Castle, in Bolton-le-Moors, would look upon this with con- 
 tempt, and I believe I am not a little despised, by men of supposed 
 high minds, for having left it so soon to itself. What is worse, by 
 the charitable world ( which always sits in judgment upon other 
 people's motions, though ever so ignorant of them ), I was sum- 
 moned, tried, and found guilty of miserly stinginess, in leaving it 
 for this less expensive, but happier abode. It was impossible, they 
 said, for any one to be so swayed by the force of habit, or attach- 
 ment to the scenes of his youth, as to prefer what they called a 
 cottage, in comparison to a feudal castle. I ventured to dissent from 
 their opinions." 
 
 4 4 And your residence here since, of course confirmed that dissent T ' 
 
 44 It did," saidhe \ 44 for, say what one will of the attractions of gran- 
 deur and the enjoyments of wealth, one beat of the heart, occasioned 
 by any fond or happy recollection inspired by either sight or sound, 
 will make magnificence sink to nothing in the comparison. This 
 old-fashioned, moated grange was the seat of my fathers ; a fair and 
 comfortable provision for the younger branches of any family, how- 
 ever high. My mother, who, though an earl's daughter, and ulti- 
 mate heiress, was a model of moderation and unspoiled benevo- 
 lence, made it the seat of happiness to all that belonged to her. It 
 is true, the house is moderate, and near the road, and I approached 
 the castle through an avenue half a mile long. There were there, 
 also, gilded domes, walls painted al fresco, and numerous, though 
 not over-convenient apartments within doors ; while herds of deer 
 coursed an extended park without. In short, it was magnificent 
 when you got to it; but you had to traverse full five-and-twenty 
 miles of the most odious, bleak, and dreary moors ( whence the dis- 
 trict took its name), to reach it. It was sunk in a vast dell, and sur- 
 rounded closely by groves of black pine, the arms of which, like 
 those of witches, seemed at the same time to embrace and blast you 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 15 
 
 with damp and mildew. It made me think myself a Caliban tor- 
 mented by Prospero, racked with cramps, and all my bones filled 
 with aches." 
 
 " In truth," said I, " the very description makes me shiver, and 
 I am not surprised at the exchange." 
 
 "Why, without such a character as I have given it," answered 
 he, " I believe I should have done the same 5 for it came to me too 
 late. My uncle, Lord Badlesmere, died when I was long past forty ; 
 my tenants depended upon me, but could not love me. How 
 should they ? They never knew me when either they or I were in 
 our youth, which brings all ranks together. I had never been at 
 the place 5 it had not a single association like those which my heart 
 loves to feel, while this comfortable grange was full of them. It was 
 here I first loved a garden ; here I first learned to read ; here was 
 first taught there was a God ; here knew him in every tree and every 
 flower that surrounded me. In that rivulet I first bathed 5 in that 
 field mounted my first pony \ in that copse first heard the nightingale." 
 
 46 I think," said I, " you need not go on to account for your pre- 
 ference, or even your exchange." 
 
 " It was some time, however," continued he, " before I found 
 out exactly what ailed me at Bolton-le-Moors. My name gave me a 
 little feudal pride, and it promised to be amply gratified by the pos- 
 session of the castle. I felt comparatively a grandee, yet I was not 
 happy, and little imagined it was because I was too great. I passed 
 my hours in gloomy magnificence, and all the worse for the want 
 of that golden mediocrity which Horace talks of. I had no necessity 
 for the employment which made all my little occupations at the 
 grange so sweet. Every thing was done for me, and my servants 
 seemed ashamed of me if I did any thing for myself. I revelled in 
 company at home and abroad ; for all my uncle's friends made a 
 point of shewing their respect for his memory, by treating me as 
 they did him — that is, never leaving me alone ; and I soon found 
 that, though I was lord of a castle, I had not the felicity of a home. 
 I wanted those hours of the early morning, which, from the medi- 
 tations they inspire, colour the whole day with cheerfulness. I 
 wanted the freshness of the flowers which I myself had reared ; the 
 retired shades which I myself had planted : these always gave my 
 mind composure. Would you believe it, too, that the first proof I 
 had of how much I had lost by the exchange was the missing the 
 children of the village flocking past my windows, just after milking 
 time in the morning, with their cans and pitchers for the skimmed 
 milk, which my mother always gave away ? The sight was ever 
 exhilarating, and the day all the better for it." 
 
 " But why," said I, "could not this be enjoyed at the castle as 
 well as in the village?" 
 
 " In the first place, because there was no village, and conse- 
 
16 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 quently no children. A landscape gardener, with much tasle and no 
 benevolence, had persuaded Lord Badlesmere to pull down the whole 
 hamlet, where their ancestors and his had been reared together 
 for two centuries with mutual benefit. In the next, I had become 
 so much richer than my mother at the grange, mat this little milk 
 donation, being like so much water, gave me none of that self- 
 satisfaction, though small, which one feels in giving up something 
 to the wants of another. Besides, to admit a parcel of little paupers 
 so near so noble a residence disturbed the ideas of respect due to 
 my lord's gentleman, if not to my lord himself 5 and all such were 
 chased away, either by the dogs or the stable-boys, who had orders 
 to that effect." 
 
 I loved my host for these sentiments. 
 . " Still, however," said I, " you could not be in a desert, as you 
 revelled, you say, in company," 
 
 " Hinc illce lacrymce" returned he. " Though i thought the 
 only good of those eternal moors would be to keep off visitors, not 
 only that failed, but I was forced to return the visits. Oh, the yawns 
 and sbiverings I have had while counting the minutes, I may say 
 the hours, which it took me to cross them; for there being no in- 
 tervening post-houses, my horses were obliged to drag me slowly 
 along \ and when I got to the promised land, and was plunged into 
 what I sought, the society of my country neighbours, as they were 
 called, though thirty, and some of (hem forty miles off — alas! tell 
 it not in Gath — the very thought of it makes me yawn at this dis- 
 tance of lime," 
 
 Here he suiled the action to the word so emphatically, that I 
 burst out a-iaughing, and could hardly ask him what there was in 
 the recollection that so moved him. 
 
 "You," replied he, " who have had the good fortune to be un- 
 acquainted with any but the natural tone and manners of those of 
 your own age, and of the same pursuits, can scarce imagine the 
 torrent of dulness and constraint which you will sometimes be 
 doomed to meet with in what is called society. You yet know no- 
 thing of ennui. But of all society, deliver me from that which 
 presses you to earth in the country ; from which there is no escape, 
 and which you are bound by convention to undergo in a remote 
 county. In town, you may choose; near town, you may shut your- 
 self up if you please 5 nobody will mind you. There are enough, 
 and to spare. But at Bolton-le-Moors " 
 
 " 0 ! pray, let us have it," said I, seeing him stop. 
 
 "Why, I told you/' proceeded he, "that in settling there, 
 though, as it were, obliged to do so, I found I had made a mis- 
 take, and exchanged real and natural, though homely interests, 
 for glare, vanity, and complaisance, amounting indeed to flattery, 
 but which was too artificial (0 do the heart good. All the country 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 17 
 
 came to see me, and I drove a-visiting in my coach and six to all 
 the country. I received and gave two or three courses at dinner; 
 I ate off plate, and my plate was admired. For all this, except when 
 warmed with wine or politics, nothing hung so heavily as our 
 dinners; and as for our evenings, they were dulness personified. 
 A boarding-house at Bath could not be worse. Now and then a 
 pretty Hebe of a girl would shew some nature 5 that is, as much as 
 she dared. Her eyes would sparkle with what pleasure she could 
 get, and I rejoiced at seeing natural cheerfulness 5 but for one 
 quarter of an hour of this, there were two whole hours of flatness. 
 The watches were out every ten minutes ; the coachman had cer- 
 tainly made a mistake ; and the moment of separation was the only 
 pleasant one of the meeting." 
 
 " And yet you were here among those of your own rank, stalion, 
 and fortune? " 
 
 "Yes j they were, as Pope describes his country friends to Wy- 
 cherley, ' a sort of modest, inoffensive people, who neiiher have 
 sense, nor pretend to any, but enjoy a jovial sort of dulness. They 
 are commonly known in the world by the name of honest, civil 
 gentlemen.' Yes; there were Sir Harry, and my lord, and half-a- 
 dozen of my ladies; but then they (particularly my ladies) were 
 out of their element in a country drawing-room. There were no 
 interests where there was nobody to court, no turn to serve. The 
 men could not continue to talk politics, or fox-hunting, or yeo- 
 manry, after they had left the dining-room ; and the women, after 
 they had surveyed each other's dresses, and mentally sal in judgment 
 upon the expense or taste which each had displayed, were quite 
 done. Nor was this relieved by, for the most part, very bad music. 
 Never shall I forget the torture I suffered from the constant repe- 
 tition of that exquisite piece of tedious flatness, even when well sung, 
 
 ' Angels ever bright and fair.' 
 
 Here it was intolerable, yet called for in every party, and once, to 
 my consternation, encored by a man of ten thousand a-year, who 
 could not be refused. Heaven forgive me ! I have hated him ever 
 since. It was only when the old people got to cards, or the young 
 ones, after a thousand abortive attempts, got really into a quadrille 
 (in which dulness still pursued them), that the time seemed to get 
 on. At all other times these social parties gave me the idea of the 
 Dutchman, who, making a great noise by jumping over the chairs, 
 and being asked what he meant by it, answered with great naivete, 
 c J'apprends a etre vif.' " 
 
 This produced a hearty laugh on my part; indeed the whole 
 description was ludicrous, though given in solemn sadness. 
 
 "All this," he proceeded, "often repealed, became at last a 
 serious misfortune ; the distance from neighbours protracted per- 
 il. 2 
 
18 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ) 
 
 force, with many of them, all visits for two or three days, and I 
 found that to have five-and-twenty miles of moors between us did 
 any thing but make Blackdown Casile come up to! La Bruyere's 
 idea of a solitude, ' Repos, retraite, et un endroit qui soit son 
 domaine.' On the contrary, I felt twenty limes a-day that my 
 whistling ploughman might say to me, 
 
 4 A simple, rustic home of liberty 
 Is worth your honours in captivity.' 
 
 cl In fine, I discovered that the life I was leadingjsuited not even 
 my fortune, much less my habits 5 for my Lord Badlesmere, with 
 less income than befitted an earl, had lived like a duke, and left 
 me a revenue very disproportionate to the place. I gladly, therefore, 
 returned to this my ' rustic home of liberty,' where I enjoy what, 
 after all the vicissitudes of what is thought good fortune, is among 
 the purest and most real sources of happiness, ' Sibi posse vivere, 
 et Musis, et cum paucis non fallacihus amicis, in agelli an- 
 gulo, consenescere V " 
 
 Here he ceased, and the Dutchman, who was learning a etre 
 <vif\ at which I had indulged a laugh, was forgotten in the serious- 
 ness with which these last sentences were uttered. The story and 
 the bottle were now ended, and coffee coming in, put an end for the 
 present to our pleasant conversation. 
 
 The after-dinner stroll now came on, for Manners was one of the 
 first who had emancipated himself from the custom, so subversive 
 of all good-feeling and all rational enjoyment, which in those days 
 prevailed, of exciting, and therefore deteriorating both the mind 
 and constitution by more wine than nature required. We talk of 
 our good old forefathers! Surely they were good old brutes, wor- 
 shippers of the baneful cup of Comus, 
 
 " Whose pleasing poison 
 The visage quite transforms of him who drinks, 
 And the inglorious likeness of a beast 
 Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage." 
 
 We talk of modern amusements, rail-roads and steam — how far 
 more beneficial to our happiness is the improvement in our man- 
 ners, which makes it now a reproach instead of a glory for a gentle- 
 man to be drunk. 
 
 It was not yet quite evening (for fifty years ago we did not dine 
 at eight o'clock in the country), but the sun was approaching his 
 final declension : 
 
 ' Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant : 
 Majoresque cadunt altis de mootibus umbrae V 
 
 1 1 To be able to live to one's self, and in the corner of one's farm grow old in the culti- 
 vation of the Muses and a few sincere friends.' 
 
 - " And now in the distance the cottage chimneys begin to smoke, and a lengthened 
 shade falls from the lofty hills." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 1® 
 
 The air was balmy, and (he scent of the flowers seemed to perfec- 
 tionate our sensual enjoyments. We had approached the opening 
 into the fields, where half-a-dozen beautiful cows were winding in 
 a waving line from the milking byre to their night pasture, and 
 made the air resound with their lowing. 
 
 My classical host, after contemplating them a few minutes, broke 
 out with — 
 
 " Aut in reducta valle mugientium 
 Prospectat errantes greges." 
 
 4 1 This," said he, 44 is the most soothing time of the day, and 
 this (he most soothing of sights. It gives you the idea of a delicious 
 plenty afforded by nature, accompanied with independence and 
 perfect innocence, insuring rest and tranquillity. How happy when 
 the evening of life resembles it." 
 
 44 It is superior to the morning, " said I, 44 in pleasurable sen- 
 sations. " 
 
 44 Not quite," observed he, smiling-, 44 for content as I am with 
 my evening, I perhaps should have no objection to a little of your 
 youth. And yet I am not sure : for one would not willingly go out 
 again to sea when the haven is in sight. I am not a Lord Ligonier." 
 
 I asked his allusion, and he told me that Lord Ligonier, when at 
 eighty, found himself still a man of pleasure, and was asked for 
 promotion by his relation, the present General Lascelles. 44 1 am 
 tbree-and-twenty," said Lascelles, 44 and yet I am but a cornet." 
 44 Be thankful, you young dog," said Ligonier. 44 1 am Comman- 
 der-in-chief, but would change with you to-morrow." 44 Now this 
 I am not prepared to say, even to you." 
 
 44 1 don't know why you should," said I, 44 for you seem the pic- 
 lure of happiness, and deserve to be so. Virgil, in the eclogue you 
 quoted just now, must certainly have seen you and this retreat in a 
 vision, when he wrote the lines, 
 
 ' Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura manebunt ; 
 Fortunate senex, hlc inter flumina nota, 
 Et fontes sacros, frigus captabis opacum '.' " 
 
 Mr. Manners nodded his head, and seemed by no means ill- 
 pleased with the allusion. 
 
 44 1 know not," said he, 44 if I have a right to be addressed by 
 the epithet of Fortunatus \ but if a capability, in my old age, of en- 
 joying such a scene as this, and being alive in a summer evening to 
 the pleasures of sacred fountains and the cool shade, will justify 
 the appellation, perhaps it may belong to me. The situation, pro- 
 spects, hopes, and fears of an old man, particularly in reference to 
 
 ' 'Fortunate old man, whose farm is preserved to you, and who, amidst your well- 
 known streams and sacred fountains, enjoyest the cool shade.' 
 
20 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 and comparison with youlh, have not, as you may suppose, passed 
 unexamined by me." 
 
 " The result,'' said I, " must be edifying, and much I doubt if 
 you, at least, can justify the character of 
 
 ' Strict age and sour severity.' " 
 
 " Thanking you for the compliment," returned he, "I know not 
 if that character is a fair one, for it is our own fault if we are noi 
 as happy as you-, though the happiness of youlh, from the exu- 
 berance, nay, the riot of its hopes, is so great, that if we had not 
 even still richer, though not such riotous hope, there would be no 
 sort of comparison between us. With this richer hope, I would not 
 yield you one jot of happiness more than a healthy old man might 
 enjoy." 
 
 " This is very charming," said I, " and I quite long to be en- 
 lightened on so interesting a subject." 
 
 " Why, it is not," replied he, " the loss of youth, in regard to 
 its sensual enjoyments, that forms the regrets of old age-, for the 
 latter may have quite as much positive enjoyment as the former." 
 
 Seeing me look surprised, "Nay, start not," said he, "fori 
 must tell you what perhaps you must be old before you know. Quiet, 
 rest, and tranquillity, are quite as happy, if not happier things than 
 excitement. It is the less and less prospect of the happiness conti- 
 nuing that embitters the last years of those who are quitting the 
 world, if they have no consolation in doing so. Could a man of 
 seventy, at ease in body and mind, look forward to fifty years more 
 in the same condition he is in, as you young men do, (though far 
 from being sure of it), he would be quite as happy, perhaps hap- 
 pier, in his arm-chair, than you in a fox chase." 
 
 " Rather a tame sort of happiness," said I. 
 
 " But still happiness," answered he, " and of the most demon- 
 strable kind. For, let me ask you, in your late journeys on foot, how 
 many miles did you make in a day ? " 
 
 u Sometimes twenty." 
 
 "And when you came to your inn of an evening, what did 
 
 you do? " 
 
 " Nothing, for I was loo tired, and sought repose." 
 " Just so; and you found that the repose of doing nothing after 
 a long journey was a great pleasure. So says Milton : 
 
 ' Piefreshment after toil, ease after pain.' " 
 " I see what you mean," said I. 
 
 " I am glad of it," replied he, "for you now see that my arm- 
 chair in the evening of life is as great a pleasure as your evening 
 repose after a long day's journey. But even in youlh, healthy exis- 
 tence — that is, a tranquil enjoyment of it in the simple act of breath- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 21 
 
 ing — is (llianks to Him who so ordained it !) positive enjoyment, 
 and in itself enough. Besides, as 1 once heard one old man, an ex- 
 cabinet minister, say to another, who was lamenting that there was 
 nothing left in the world worth enjoying, — 'You forget that we can 
 eat our dinners and sleep on our beds.' 
 
 " Of the efficiency of one of these sources you will perhaps need 
 no conviction, after what you witnessed in me two hours ago. This 
 I own is rather unsentimental; but add to it what I am supposing in 
 the case, the power of meditation, reading, and agreeable conver- 
 sation, and do not flatter yourself that an old man is not as happy 
 as a young one. If he has fewer desires, he has fewer mortifica- 
 tions, for most innocent nature never meant 
 
 ' As if her children should be riotous with her abundance.' " 
 
 " All that is beautifully true,' 1 observed 1 ; " but are we wrong 
 in supposing that there are evils peculiar to old age, 
 
 * The lean and slipper'd pantaloon, 
 The hose, a world too wide for his shrunk shank ? ' 
 
 " But I will not go on, except indeed that I recollect a denun- 
 ciation of old age by Rousseau, which cannot offend you, at least, 
 who are greatly too far off it to be affected by it." 
 
 " O ! even if 1 were not," said he, " by all means let us have it." 
 
 I hesitated a little; but, urged by him, at length repeated, 
 
 " Vieux, on le mSprise, on l'evite, 
 Mauvaise humeur, infirmity, 
 Toux, gravelle, goutte, pituite, 
 AssiSgent sa caduciteY' 
 
 Far from taking this ill, it moved his laughter. 
 
 " And pray," said he, " thou representative of most immaculate 
 and unimpeachable youth, do not the world despise and avoid 
 empty young coxcombs, who bore you with their self-sufficient and 
 boisterous spirits, as well as languishing old men ? Are you never 
 in bad humour? Have you no infirmities? no coughs, gravel, or 
 even gout? I reject this monopoly of disease and ill-humour by 
 age; though I grant you the other terrors are loo faithfully de 
 scribed; not only the 'shrunk shank,' but 6 the big manly voice, 
 turning again towards childish treble pipes;' and even the 'second 
 childishness,' 
 
 ' Sans teelh, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.' 
 
 "Yet these last, by making us wish for death, would reconcile 
 us to it ; and even these last do not proscribe mind. These, how- 
 ever, are extreme cases, for seldom indeed do all these privations 
 befal one individual, and leave him without any resources. Perhaps 
 the resources left have even heightened enjoyments to make up for 
 
22 DK CLIFFORD 5 
 
 what is lost. Take my own example. God has taken away some- 
 thing, but has left me more. I am deaf, but I might have been 
 blind. I cannot hear the blackbird, but I can enjoy this ample pro- 
 spect, as much, or more than ever. I cannot walk twenty mi!es 
 a-day, as you do 5 but 1 can sit on a bench, and, better than you 
 (because I feel it more), feel and adore the sun. 
 
 "My gratitude for this is not only greater, as it ought to be, 
 when I consider what I might be, but is of a more exquisite and 
 warmer nature, and therefore makes me happier than the feelings 
 upon it of a youth, who, seeing how common it is, looks upon it 
 as a right. Be assured the frame of mind which old age thus ge- 
 nerates, alone balances, nay, more than balances, ail the gay 
 carelessness of youth 
 
 "Let me return then to that with which I set out, and which 
 alone I hold as a set-off against youth 5 I mean a healthy old age, 
 unburthened by conscience, having honourable retrospections, and 
 alive to mental cheerfulness. With these, an old man need envy no 
 young one. 
 
 a One evil there is, I grant you, and that a severe one. The loss 
 of friends, together with the prospect of being soon lost one's self. 
 But besides that no young age can be insured against this, even here 
 is consolation in hope — the hope of living again, and in abetter 
 world joining the loved beings who have gone before us. I thank 
 God that, far from having parted with this hope, it has increased 
 with my years, and in the indulgence of it I wail with calmness the 
 approach of the ' inaudible and noiseless foot of Time.' " 
 
 I could not, and indeed wished not, to reply to this , for I felt both 
 its force and its pathos. 
 
 A pause ensued, which, from its solemnity neither of us seemed 
 inclined to interrupt, till, warming with his last sentiment, he asked 
 me if I had ever seen some beautiful lines of Hughes, which he 
 said should be written in letters of gold : 
 
 " There let Time's creeping winter shed 
 His reverend snow around my head ; 
 And while I feel by fast degrees 
 My sluggard blood wax chill and freeze, 
 Let thought unveil to my fix'd eye 
 „ A scene of deep eternity, 
 
 Till, life dissolving at the view, 
 I wake, and find the vision true." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF A VERT INTERESTING SUGGESTION MADE BY MR. MANNERS TO CLIFFORD. — HOW 
 GLADLY HE RECEIVED, AND HOW SOON HE FORGOT IT, IN CONTEMPLATING THE MOON. 
 
 " How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank." 
 In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did recover old JEson. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Merchant of Venice. 
 
 At the close of our conversation in the last chapter, a servant 
 announced tea in the library, and I suppose I looked surprised, as 
 there were no ladies in the house and Manners had not ordered it; 
 so he thought it necessary to explain. 
 
 " I see," said he, "your wonder at this : but it is only one other 
 accompaniment of the solitary life. For where we are not bound to 
 lake note of time by any superior demand upon it, unless we make 
 one for ourselves, the machine would run down of itself. The terms 
 5oo7zand late would be lost, and the hours of the house would run 
 wild. This I found after I finally settled myself here, in the sort of 
 robe de chambre life I lead. The robe would never be off my back, 
 if there was not a regular order of things, and times for doing them. 
 At first, the cook, the butler, the groom, never knew where to have 
 me, nor I them g so I drew up a code of laws for our common govern- 
 ment 5 the time of all meals, for all persons, was enacted, and exactly 
 kept to; and since that we have done pretty well. I am quizzed for 
 this, too, among other things, by my charitable neighbours, who 
 sneer at me as a bore of an old man, who moves by clockwork. I 
 answer, I wish their lives were half as regular as my clock. So now 
 you see why we have been summoned to tea, and why I dare not 
 disobey 5 all which, whether you approve or disapprove, you may 
 put down to the account of Solitude." 
 
 " I shall be an adept, I have no doubt, at last," said I. 
 
 " An adept as to theory, if you will, but not in practice. You must 
 put off that to this time forty years.' 1 
 
 This not unnaturally led to inquiries as to my professional views ; 
 ' 1 for, undoubtedly," said he, "you must have some; though I sup- 
 pose, from your Sedbergh exhibition at Queen's, and your election 
 afterwards to Maudlin, they are clerical; a college tutor and a 
 country parson, like your master, Folhergill; but, heavens! how 
 that man was thrown away." 
 
 He does not think so himself," observed I; 46 nor do I believe 
 he would have been half so happy in the actual world, much as he 
 knows of its theory. He failed, you know, in endeavouring to 
 become a politician under Lord Gastlcton." 
 
•2i 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 " He did so ; though Castleton both loved and respected him • but 
 he had not the esprit liant. I trust you will not imitate him in that. " 
 " You know Lord Castleton, then?" 
 
 " Yes, full well-, for not only am I his near relation through the 
 Badlesmeres, but when I was in the world we were great political 
 friends. He was one of the few whom I really believed honest in 
 his ambition ; and he used to say I was one of the few who was sin- 
 cere in my love of privacy. He sometimes writes to me, and more 
 than once has unbent for four-and-twenfcy hours at a time at the 
 Grange. By the way, I wish you knew him. He has often com- 
 plained to me that he never could attach a young man of parts to 
 his service, for his own sake ; or who did not acquire such a vast 
 opinion of himself, that he was forced to dismiss him in his own 
 defence. Do you know, it has already struck me, once or twice, in 
 the course of our conversations, that you would just suit him. You 
 are well born, which he likes ; well-looking, which he likes; and 
 ingenui vultus puer, which he very much likes. Your romance 
 and your sentiment would be no drawback, for he once had them 
 himself; and your apparent scholarship would be an additional re- 
 commendation, for he not only had, but retains, a considerable 
 portion of literature to this day. 1 ' 
 
 I was absolutely bewildered during this speech. I could not 
 believe my new-found kinsman in earnest : my colour came and 
 went § and Folhergill's suggestions to the same effect rushing into 
 my mind, I became dizzy with the thousand notions which, thus 
 repeated, they engendered. 
 
 Mr. Manners seeing me agitated, asked the cause of it 5 and hav- 
 ing recovered myself, I fairly told him my surprise at the extra- 
 ordinary coincidence between him and Folhergill upon this point. 
 
 " Surprising, but not displeasing, I trust," said he. 
 
 " Very far from it," replied I, "if I were only worthy of it. But 
 obscure, ignorant of the world, particularly of the high world, its 
 manners, maxims, and conventions; what would become of me? 
 and even if your unaccountable sudden feeling of favour towards 
 me, which I know not how I can have acquired — ■ — " 
 
 " 0!" interrupted he; " truce with your modesty here, at least, 
 though it might become you in the presence of a perhaps jealous 
 patron. As to your obscurity, a demy of Maudlin, with the pro- 
 spect of a fellowship, belongs absolutely to noblesse; and such 
 obscurity as Addison set out with cannot be very detrimental. Then 
 you are a De Clifford and a Bardolfe : 
 
 *\ A noble young fellow three ages ago." 
 
 Last and not least, you will please to observe, you are my first 
 cousin, only three or four times removed. The devil's in it, should 
 Castleton have a vacancy in his bureau, if he would fill it obscurely 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 25 
 
 in choosing you. I must only lay my wils together wilt* Folhcrgill's, 
 to see how to bring it about." 
 
 Then, seeing that I was still agitated, and that the evening was 
 fast closing in, he said, " There, I have spoiled your contemplative 
 walk home to-night, notwithstanding that rising moon, which will 
 make me envy you the chequered shade she will cause in Asher's 
 Wood. But go, and enjoy it if you can, notwithstanding the dream 
 of the world I have raised in you. I suppose you will feel a little 
 like Gil Bias, after hearing the momentous words — ' You now be- 
 long to the king! 1 But love the moon, notwithstanding : think of 
 what I have told you, and pray dine with me again to-morrow." 
 
 At these words he playfully almost pushed me out of the room, 
 and, as I passed the open window, called out, " If you hear any 
 bells, though only a sheep-bell, in your way home, think of one 
 Whittington, and that they cry, 
 
 ' Turn again, Whittington, 
 Lord Mayor of London town.' " 
 
 With this prophetic distich in my ears, I certainly, at first, 
 thought much of London town 5 but the dream did not last long. 
 For though, for the first two or three hundred yards, my fancy con- 
 jured up many visions of the interesting novelties of public life, 
 it was scarcely possible for them to continue in the pastoral vil- 
 lage of Binfield. 
 
 The bean-flowers, that richest and sweetest of scents, which here 
 flourished in profusion, and perhaps gave its name to the village, 
 again perfumed the air, and filled all the senses with a soothing 
 voluptuousness wholly incompatible with dreams of ambition. It 
 was impossible to think of courts in such a garden. 
 
 The day, too, had for some time sunk, and given place to what 
 has well been called, "a universal gravity." Twilight herself 
 seemed departing, and the gleams of her silver lints, after having 
 lingered a minute on the higher objects, as if to claim a last fare- 
 well, dropt suddenly from the sight, and were gone almost as soon 
 as seen. 
 
 There was a moral in this which effectually banished worldly 
 desires \ for it made me reflect how uncertain is our hold on all 
 we may most love. 
 
 I gave way therefore to holier aspirations 5 and forgot Lord Castle- 
 ton and his bureau in far different and higher speculations. 
 
 And now the moon had begun to array herself in melting soft- 
 ness. Was it possible for the mind lo dwell upon artificial grandeur, 
 or any power belonging to man, under such surpassing proofs of 
 creative splendour in the Omnipotent? No heart could resist its 
 influence 5 and mine forgot this lower world, in thinking of His 
 power and beneficence who dwell above. 
 
26 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 What made the scene more rich and seductive, was the gradual 
 majestic advance of this all-diffusing orb, from faint beginnings to 
 the wide-spreading influence of universal brightness. For at first, 
 scarce seen in the horizon, the effect upon surrounding objects was 
 not so great, and the hemisphere remained for a while only just 
 visible. But soon rising higher and higher, she shot forth all her 
 glories, 
 
 " Firing the proud tops of the eastern pines." 
 This made me, her worshipper, bow down, senseless to any in- 
 fluence but her own ; for while the whole vault of heaven was cloud- 
 less, every ray told upon the surrounding landscape, and I never 
 so much felt the exact as well as sublime description of him who 
 excelled in sublimity and exactness :• — 
 
 " Now Heav'n in all her glory shone, and roll'd 
 Her motions as the great first mover's hand 
 First wheel'd her course ; earth in her rich attire 
 Consummate, lovely, smiled." 
 
 No; I could not think of Lord Castleton, fearing, if I did so, 
 heaven and earth would rebuke me for my selfishness. 
 
 And yet with all this rapture (for it was no less) in regard to this 
 lovely planet, I somehow or another felt a want for her. She 
 seemed too dependent upon another, whose deputy only she was, 
 when I would have had her a queen, with power self-derived. She 
 seemed also alone, and to feel that she was so. Peerless, as she 
 rode through the boundless ether, I wished to give her a com- 
 panion. She appeared a widow, or an orphan, or both. The happi- 
 ness she diffused to others seemed wanting to herself. 
 
 These thoughts possessed me so much, that I invoked the Muse 
 upon them, and before I got to Oakin gharri, they had arranged 
 themselves in some stanzas, which perhaps I might venture to re- 
 cord, but that long — long since they were composed, the same 
 thought was embodied by a superior genius, whose premature and 
 most affecting death has enhanced the interest of all her produc- 
 tions '. Among the sweetest of them is the sonnet [ allude to, which 
 the reader may pass over if he pleases ; but if he reads it, I think he 
 will thank me. 
 
 SONNET TO THE MOON. 
 
 The moon is sailing o'er the sky, 
 
 But lonely all, as if she pined 
 For something of companionship, 
 
 And felt it was in vain she shined. 
 
 Earth is her mirror, and the stars 
 
 Are as a court around her throne ; 
 She is a beauty, and a queen, 
 
 But what of that P she is alone. 
 
 1 L. E. h. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN, 
 
 %1 
 
 Is there not one, not one to share 
 
 Thy glorious royalty on high? 
 I cannot choose but pity thee, 
 
 Thou lovely orphan of the sky. 
 
 I'd rather be the meanest flow'r 
 
 That grows, my mother earth, on thee, 
 So there were others of my kin 
 
 To blossom, bloom, and die with me. 
 
 Earth, thou hast sorrow, grief, and death, 
 
 But with these better could I bear, 
 Than guide and rule yon radiant sphere, 
 
 And be a solitary there. 
 
 With such reflections as these, in which perhaps there was a 
 linge of melancholy, though not unpleasing, I traversed the dewy 
 lawns and still woods (too still, for it was too late in the year for 
 the nightingale) that lay between Binfield and Oakingham. What 
 they wanted in melody, however, they endeavoured to make up in 
 freshness, which was emitted from every leaf and every tuft and wild- 
 flower which spread itself to the influence of the soft night air. The 
 effect upon the nerves was perfect, and when I saw the lights and 
 buildings of Oakingham, I felt displeased, for they took me back 
 to the world. 
 
 Yet I soon remembered that for that world I was destined ; and 
 the Royal Oak, where a weekly club still lingered, after a market- 
 day, made me forget my romance ; and the bells of the church, on 
 which the ringers, according to good old English custom, were 
 exercising their skill, in I don't know how many bob majors, made 
 me recollect, though without superstition, the allusion of Mr. 
 Manners to — " Turn again, Whittington." 
 
 Having got me to bed, I gave myself up to serious reflection on 
 the (to me) strange events of the day ; — the discovery of my relation- 
 ship to Mr. Manners, acknowledged by him in so frank and flatter- 
 ing a manner that it was incontestable 5 the accomplished mind of 
 that gentleman ; his great and sudden favour towards me, and the 
 extraordinary prospect he held forth as the possible result of it 
 with Lord Castleton — all this made me resolve to write in detail to 
 Fothergill, and shortly to my family. My bosom swelled with hope, 
 and I fell into a sound and happy sleep, from which I did not wake 
 for several hours. 
 
 The next day I executed my purpose, by giving my quondam 
 tutor the whole history of my rencontre with his friend, and my 
 obligations to that friendship in procuring me originally so much 
 of his notice. I then detailed the wonder of our discovered connec- 
 tion 5 Mr. Manners' increased kindness in consequence 5 and, finally, 
 the hope he had held out of some benefit which, with his (Fothcr- 
 guTs) assistance, it might procure for me with Lord Castleton. 
 
28 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 From foreseeing that I should have to break in considerably upon 
 the plan of my pedestrian tour, I wrote also to the person who had 
 the care of my rooms at Maudlin, to send me, per coach, a strong 
 reinforcement to my wardrobe. 
 
 To my father I communicated the acquaintance I had made wit!: 
 Mr. Manners, and the curious circumstance of the relationship ; 
 but said nothing, for the present, of the prospect (distant as it was) 
 of an introduction to Lord Castleion. 
 
 Having all these things in train, I began then to think of my 
 engagement to return to the Grange, and once more took the road 
 to Binfield. By way of variety, however, under my landlord's direc- 
 tion, 1 took a different course, by what is called the Forest-road, 
 which (such is the beauty of this fairy land) was hardly less attrac- 
 tive than Asher's Wood itself. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DISAPPOINTMENTS IN THE FRIENDSHIPS OF A MAN OF THE WORLD, AS RELATED 
 BY MR. MANNERS. — HIS ACCOUNT OF A MODERN PHARISEE, AND OF CERTAIN MODERN 
 FEMALE CHARACTERS.— THE VISITING BOOK OF A LADY OF FASHION. — JUS OPINION 
 OF THE PROFESSION OF AN AUTHOR. 
 
 It is a pretty mocking of the life. 
 Here is a touch ! Is't good ? 
 
 HI say of it, 
 
 It tutors nature. 
 
 Shakspeare. —Timon of Athens. 
 
 When I first set out to re-visit the Grange, nothing promised 
 fairer than the weather 5 but the gathering of summer clouds, at 
 first fleecy and light, and emitting a few heat drops, soon thicken- 
 ing into dark heavy masses, and pouring down torrents, compelled 
 me to look for shelter. 
 
 I found it in one of the pretty cottages that throng the forest, the 
 mistress of which, a well-looking young woman, beckoned me to 
 her door, and begged t.e to come in. I did so, and found an epi- 
 tome of neatness and comfort which always pleases. She had two 
 children, whose appearance, as well as her own, exhibited the same 
 neatness. Yet she was engaged in menial offices 5 in fact, by (he 
 pots on the fire, preparing food for her little ones, and, as I sup- 
 posed, her expected husband. 
 
 I asked if this was not the case, which brought a gloom over 
 her countenance, when she told me she was a widow. 
 
 "So young ?" said I. 
 
 44 Yes," she replied; and she and her babes might have sunk 
 under it, for they had had misfortunes, and the creditors were hard 
 
OR, THE CONST A INT MAN. 29 
 
 with them, and all her means had failed with her husband's life 
 
 w But God," said she, " raised me up friends." 
 As I liked this sort of conversation, I asked who ? and she replied, 
 " Two gentlemen in the neighbourhood, Sir William Thompson; 
 
 who lived in the great house I had just passed, and Mr. Manners, 
 
 of the Grange." 
 
 Struck a little with this, I wished to hear more of her benefactors, 
 and as I needed no information as to Mr. Manners, inquired about 
 Sir William. 
 
 " They be both good," replied the poor woman, " and will, I 
 hope, both go to heaven for what they did for ihe widow and or- 
 phan 5 I am sure I should be the most ungralefultest wretch upon 
 «?arlh if I did not pray for them both, particularly Mr. Manners." 
 
 Here she became embarrassed, as if she had said something im- 
 proper, and began to explain that she did not mean any thing par- 
 ticular by that against Sir William, for it was most true, that both 
 were excellent gentlemen, and " God knows," she added, " to me 
 have been blessed benefactors, for they preserved me and my infants 
 from sinking beyond redemption : nor do I really know as to their 
 goodness that there can be any difference between them, for both 
 are good, and give away a deal of money ; and yet— — V 
 
 Here she paused again, as if in thought, and fearful to go on. 
 
 " And yet what?" said I, wishing to hear her story. 
 
 " O ! I am afraid I am very ungrateful, and therefore very wicked, 
 to make the least distinction between these good gentlemen, who 
 have both wiped the widow's tears, and comforted her and her 
 babes against the wind and cold, when they had no house, nor 
 bread to eat." 
 
 At this she looked around her neat and warm apartment, where 
 every thing was so comfortable. 
 
 " No," she proceeded, u Sir William has even done more for us, 
 as to money, than Mr. Manners 5 and I must be a bad creature to 
 like one better than t'other, if indeed I do so." 
 
 Here again she looked rather distressed, as if taking herself to 
 task, and sighed not a little. 
 
 " My good woman," I observed, desira: to encourage her not 
 to think ill of herself, "I am sure one who seems so sensible to 
 kindness, and so grateful, can have no reason for self-blame." 
 
 "Ah! Sir," she replied, " I believe it is because I am so sen- 
 sible to kindness that I feel I do like one better than the other; and 
 that's what makes me so angry with myself; for I am not more 
 grateful to Mr. Manners, though I cannot help liking him best ; 
 and I am sure I pray God to bless them both, for both deserve it." 
 
 A tear stood in her eye as she said this, and as she wiped it away, 
 she added — 
 
 " God forgive me, I have been very foolish to talk so. I hope, 
 
30 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 sir, you are not a friend to Sir William. I am sure I would rather 
 die than offend him after all he has done for me." 
 
 To comfort her, I told her I was not at all acquainted with Sir 
 William, but was the friend of Mr. Manners, to whose house I was 
 going 5 and I asked her to tell me why she preferred the one to the 
 other, when both were so good. 
 
 u I am sure," answered she, " I be not able to tell, except that 
 Mr. Manners be more kind-like — (no—that's not it neither, for Sir 
 William, as I say, is very kind), but Mr. Manners be more free, 
 and talks to me like a father, and planned my little garden for me 
 himself, and often comes into the cottage and hears the children 
 read 5 and when I first fell into misforlin, Sir William only sent his 
 man to me, who rather huffed me 5 but Mr. Manners cum himself, 
 and was as gentle as a lamb. Besides, though Sir William gave me 
 a good deal of this furniture, I never saw him but once, for he sel- 
 dom calls, and never comes in when he does, and always holds him- 
 self high; and his butler, who sometimes brings messages, be 
 higher still. Poor folks can always distinguish these things by the 
 pleasure or pain it give them." 
 
 "Well, my good woman," said I, "you have explained this 
 perfectly well, and I can easily understand it 5 nor would Sir Wil- 
 liam, I dare say, himself take it ill, when he heard that Mr. Man- 
 ners seemed like a father to you, which he must know he did not." 
 
 "O! Sir," she replied, u if you be going to Mr. Manners's, I 
 hope you will not mention any thing I have said of him \ but I must 
 always love him as a pattern for all other gentlefolks." 
 
 The demeanour of this good creature really affected me, and gave 
 me a good lecture to boot on the mistake of those who, however 
 generous as to money, think that the mere giving it away suffices to 
 all the requisites of charity. It gave me, too, the best comment on 
 what St. Paul says upon the subject, u that though a man give all 
 his goods to feed the poor, and hath not charity, it profileth him 
 nothing." 
 
 Let the many Sir William Thompsons there are, who give much 
 of their abundance, but little of their kindliness, think of the distinc- 
 tion made by this humble cottager between her benefactors, and do 
 better. 
 
 I was thankful to the shower for having procured me a lesson I 
 never forgot, and I conn'd it over and over during the rest of my 
 fragrant walk to the Grange — more fragrant for the shower. 
 
 I found Mr. Manners enjoying it himself, and snuffing up the 
 breath of his flowers with a pleasure that would have made a king 
 envy him, and (without interrupting it by returning my salutation, 
 but as if carrying on a previous conversation) he said, 
 
 " I allow this is very sensual, and yet it has mind in it too, for 
 the sensuality is so mixed with elegance, that there is a refinement 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 31 
 
 in it, and the heart expands with grateful feeling, which always 
 does good to the mind. Now that is not Ihe case with a gross din- 
 ner, although we say grace for it \ there is no sentiment in a ra- 
 gout. But pray how did you escape the shower? " 
 
 It may be supposed I told him, with all (he circumstances of my 
 conversation with the cottager, not withholding all that she said of 
 himself, 
 
 "Ah! poor Nancy, " said he, "she might, as she says, have sunk 
 if we had not done something for her i but Sir William did far 
 more than I. Indeed he has a larger fortune, of which, perhaps, ii 
 would be belter if he was not quife so proud. However, we must 
 thank givers for the good they do, let them do it in what way they 
 wili. ,, 
 
 "Sir William, however, appears to be charitable ? " 
 
 M Why, yes ! He also thinks himself humble 5 that is, he boasts 
 of his humility; but it is not gospel humility, for he would never 
 wash his disciples' feel 5 he is much too fastidious for such an office 
 — one of what I call the ostentatious godly ; in fact, a pharisee" 
 
 " Is he not really then benevolent ? " 
 
 ff Yes ! but not after the pallern of the widow's mile still less of 
 Him he thinks he imitates. When he has well dined, and seen all 
 the comforts of his house regulated, nothing wanting in any depart- 
 ment — kitchen, cellar, stables, domestics, and all other appliances 
 — his heart will really open, or appear to do so, and whatever he 
 has to spare, he will give, for the Lord's sake 5 but he will not deny 
 himself any one indulgence, to help a man in need." 
 
 " I comprehend," said I. 
 
 " Then as to his humility," continued Mr. Manners, " though 
 he certainly gave poor Nancy money enough, as a sort of composi- 
 tion for his soul (as people formerly used to pay for masses), he ne- 
 ver personally look any interest in her, because she was not fine 
 enough in herself or her house for him to come in contact with 
 them. Besides, it was beneath one of the Elect to descend to such 
 an intercourse with a mere profane person. Hence, what he did, 
 was always by deputy, in the person of Mr. Gamaliel, his butler, 
 who gave the poor woman to understand, that from her loo great 
 anxiety in attending to her children, which interfered with her 
 praying, she was, as Touchstone said to the Shepherd, * in a par- 
 lous slate, and would cerlainiy be damned.' Indeed, his master says 
 as much of me, because once, in an argument with him, I said I 
 believed that Christ died for the whole world, if they obeyed his 
 gospel, and not merely for half-a-dozen self-elect, who called them- 
 selves the godly. 
 
 " But let us leave such trumpery to themselves, and return to 
 Whittinglon and his cat. I wrote to Folhergill last night to tell him 
 you were here, and ask whether I was right in the opinion f had 
 
32 
 
 DE CLIFFORD : 
 
 formed of you: for, to feH you the truth. I have been frequently 
 taken in, both by men and women, from a sort of headlong dispo- 
 sition to rush at once into liking or disliking a person from the im- 
 pulse of the moment, I hated Sir William the first time I saw him. 
 though I could not tell why: but I was not wrong there." 
 
 This account of himself did not too much delight me. I was afraid 
 he might have repented, or would do so ; or that, with ail his seem- 
 ing sobriety and judgment, he might be capricious. In short, I felt 
 alarmed, and by way of feeling the ground, ventured to ask if I 
 might know how he, who appeared so judicious, could be so taken 
 in ; and whether most by men or women? In short, I wished him 
 to develop himself, that I might better understand him. 
 
 " A very modest request." answered he, laughing : ; ' yet, as you 
 are a kinsman, and about to launch into the world, I should have 
 no objection to give you a few cautions, the result of a pretty long 
 experience." 
 
 ;i I should desire nothing better,"' said I : " and it would crown 
 the obligations I already feel to you.'' 
 
 ■• It however requires time." said he, " for, from the nature of 
 objects on which I have fixed my affections. I have passed my latter 
 days with few disappointments ; trees, and blossoms, and books de- 
 ceive little, so that I have, in fact, had 4 no enemy but winter and 
 rough weather." I have, therefore, been little out of humour incon- 
 sequence, and have nearly forgotten the whips and scorns of earlier, 
 and more active life. 
 
 But let me see. Oh ! there was the Duke of Brakenbury s I was 
 one of his party in politics, and, he was pleased to say, a serviceable 
 one. I helped him also in his county ; we were hand and gloye; I 
 dined with him every week in town, and staid sometimes a month 
 with him in the country. I attributed this at first to our political con- 
 nection alone ; but he swore that had I no seat in parliament, or 
 thought differently from him on public questions, he would have 
 singled me out as a private friend. Well, he changed his party, 
 though there was no change of measures : I refused to follow him ; 
 and he never spoke to me afterwards. 
 
 " There was another great man — a very great man — whose coun- 
 try interests I espoused with effect when at Bollon-le-3Ioor ; but 
 I left the castle, and from that time to this we have been scarcely 
 civil. 
 
 • ; What I think of. however, with most regret, is the separation 
 from me by a man I really loved, from a low spirit of rivalry, and 
 consequent ill usage, to which I thought him superior. We were 
 college friends ; had many tastes in common ; and he was often my 
 companion at the Warren-house, where we read together. Both 
 were destined for public life, and embarked in it under the same 
 leader— his Grace of Brakenbury. but. from being more highly 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 33 
 
 connected, I was rather more among people of fashion. This was 
 the first grievance ; for Dalton's weakness was an ambition to have 
 a high place in that class. He married early, and his wife, the 
 daughter of a nabob, shared, or rather went beyond him in this am- 
 bition 5 and my mother, Lady Elizabeth, living then in town, our 
 families became intimate. The jealousy I have mentioned soon 
 shewed itself. The coronets, too often at our door, and loo seldom 
 at theirs, gave umbrage : we were watched at public places, and 
 quarrelled with for only being noticed by our titled friends and rela- 
 tions, while they had none of the same rank to notice them. It ab- 
 sorbed us, they said, so much as to make us neglect them. This 
 was sad nonsense. But I was in parliament — Dalton not. This was 
 not so easily forgiven. I made a speech which got me some credit, 
 but it was unfairly represented, and contemptuously criticized in 
 one of the papers, with a laboured attempt to shew how much bet- 
 ter it might have been, if certain omissions had not been made, 
 and certain topics had been omitted. This was noted by the duke, 
 and in discussing it with him, I gathered that he knew the criticism 
 was by Dalton- 
 
 But criticism did not stop here. I was romantic 5 and, to amuse 
 myself, I wrote a romance which had a run. My friend turned au- 
 thor too, and wrote a political pamphlet, which nobody read. My 
 romance was cut all to pieces, or thought to be so, in one of the 
 Reviews. The review was laughed at, and the romance went through 
 several editions. You will hardly believe that Dalton was the re- 
 viewer. Both he and his wife professed to admire my work 5 but 
 the lady, in her private circle, always thanked God that her husband 
 did not write romances. 
 
 " Could our friendship continue? No ! we came to no explana- 
 tions 5 but Dalton, knowing I had discovered him, saved me the 
 trouble, by never coming near me, and we gradually cooled off 
 without any eclat." 
 
 " This is not much encouragement," said I, seeing Mr. Manners 
 had finished this part of his story, " for a young gentleman begin- 
 ning his progress in life. You said you had been taken in both by 
 men and women. I trust you have no more cases against the men ?" 
 
 "Few of any consequence, at least, to my happiness," replied 
 he \ "and as to the higher criminals against the state or general 
 morals, they belong to a higher class, and not to the category we 
 are upon." 
 
 4C I trust, then, you will come to the women, which, I own, I 
 am curious to hear." 
 
 " If you expect a history of jilting and broken vows, you will be 
 disappointed," replied he ; " and you will recollect I only said I 
 had been not unfrequenlly deceived in the expectations I had too 
 hastily formed as to the characters of individual females." 
 11. 3 
 
DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 " This will be quite interesting enough," said I, "if you wiil 
 but proceed." 
 
 " It will not be very easy," returned he, " if only from an em- 
 barras des richesses. For, though I do not agree with Pope, thai 
 
 ' Most women have no character at all,' 
 
 but, on the contrary think they have so many different ones, that it 
 is difficult to discover which prevails, it is, I dare say, from this 
 very difficulty that my expectations have so often been disappointed 11 
 
 " Are they then of so many characters?" asked I. 
 
 "What says your own experience?" 
 
 " Alas ! " returned I, " I have very little; hardly any; for the 
 only female I ever studied, had none of this variety. She was ever 
 as uniformly good, and gracious, as she was beautiful." 
 
 "Indeed!" said my Mentor, and darted a penetrating look at 
 me •, but seeing I was embarrassed, very kindly observed, "you 
 have been more fortunate in your study than I, for as far as I have 
 seen, what Romeo says of love may be applied to the very nature 
 of those who cause it — 
 
 ' O ! any thing, of nothing first created ! 
 O! heavy lightness ! serious vanity ! 
 Feather of lead ! bright smoke! cold fire ! sick health.'" 
 
 " But I long for the cases," said I. 
 
 " Well," returned he, " take the wife of one of my best friends, 
 who, it must be owned, married her rather precipitately, having 
 only seen her a month at Bath. Never shall T forget the rapture 
 with which he informed me that he had found a temper of the most 
 exquisite and cheerful softness, after his own heart. His days would 
 be all sunshine : her smile was heaven, and she always smiled. To 
 do him justice, this appeared no more than what she deserved, for 
 there was an expression in her countenance and an alacrity of obli- 
 gingness in her manner that made me think with him. I congra- 
 tulated him sincerely, and only wished that heaven had made me 
 such a one. In truth, she seemed angelic." 
 
 " And was she not?" 
 
 " Why, yes; but her angelic nature was twofold ; compounded of 
 light, certainly, but also of darkness. For at the end of the first 
 three months, I witnessed a quarrel that appalled me, and which, 
 to recollect, appals me still. The dispute was not like that of Sir 
 Charles and Lady Racket, whether a card played was a heart or a 
 diamond 1 , but whether she should have an opera box, though he 
 proved he could not afford it. To call him a poor beggar, who ought 
 not to have married her, was the least of what he suffered. Spite of 
 my presence, she seemed quite transformed with passion. Her eyes 
 
 1 See Thi-ee Weeks after Marriciijt. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 35 
 
 flashed, her brow scowled; scorn, anger, and resentment amount- 
 ing to hatred, fired every feature. I could not have believed the 
 rancour of a fury could be so personified. Gentleness ! Mercy on 
 us! every look was changed to wrath, and those beautiful locks, 
 which had so enchanted my friend, seemed turaed to snakes. Fear- 
 ing she would strike him, and unwilling to witness such unseem- 
 liness, I fled Ihe house with precipitation. They accommodated 
 matters as well as they could, but my friend was never his own man 
 again, and never afterwards talked of sunshine," 
 
 44 This is deplorable, " said I. a I trust you had not many disap- 
 pointments of this sort?" 
 
 4 ' Not precisely of this spice of the devil under a fair outside, " 
 answered he 5 44 but enough of follies in the place of expected vir- 
 tues, and loo many of ridiculous caprice and inconstancy, in lieu 
 of seeming friendship. 1 ' 
 
 44 Par exemple?" 
 
 44 The Lady Feign well, who, from being my relation, I much 
 studied. She was a peeress, not only of the highest fashion ( which 
 all peeresses are not), but perhaps the most accomplished woman 
 in Europe. Highly cultivated ; full of beautiful talents 5 music, dan- 
 cing, drawing, languages; and when she pleased, the most enga- 
 ging, I may say the most fascinating manners that ever belonged to 
 ihe sex. But then, with her inferiors in station at least, she pleased 
 to be engaging only in the country. There she was affable as well 
 as elegant, and seemingly fond of her neighbours, upon whom she 
 showered civilities, making all her attractions tell, so as to produce 
 a conviction in their minds that she loved their society. She would 
 do the honours of her table, and lay herself out a whole evening to 
 do the agreeable, as if they were dukes and duchesses. She would 
 call upon any particular family whom she was pleased to distinguish, 
 three or four times a week, and would seem mightily hurt if not 
 let in. 
 
 44 If sometimes the cloven foot appeared in regard to some whose 
 rusticity she did not like, and their John Bull feelings resented it, 
 she would then vote the sentimental, make such touching apologies, 
 and take such blame to herself, that her slights, coupled with such 
 self-blame, got her more friends than her condescensions. With 
 some she would go so far as to profess her delight in thinking of 
 intercourse with them in town. Will it be believed, that in town, 
 she fled them like a pestilence? her own doors always closed ; theirs 
 never knocked at • or if perchance they met, looks cold as ice pro- 
 claiming the allered feeling. Yet with ail this, she was not perfect 
 even in her own class of character." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 44 I have told you she was, or thought herself, sentimental; af- 
 fected the affable and condescending, though the farthest from it 
 
36 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 possible. Her waiting-maid (servants soon find us out) knew this, 
 and having had a violent quarrel with her, purloined an old visiting 
 book, with annotations in her own hand, which she, the waiting- 
 maid, had often seen, and thought she could turn to account. Take 
 some of the specimens ; for though not printed, they were shewn, 
 and as I was then admitted among the scandal-mongers, I was al- 
 lowed a sight of them. In each page, and opposite each name, there 
 were what were intitled notes, as follows : — 
 
 ' Mrs. Chilly. — Yulgar, but good (very good in the country ). 
 T shall let her remain 5 but on no account visit in town. 
 
 ' Lady Hatchlands.— Hateful, but the fashion. I should like to 
 drop, but shall be forced to keep her, on account of her cousin, the 
 duke. I wish dukes would never marry commoners. 
 
 ' Miss Colebrook. — Poor, but an excellent toady, and useful pro- 
 neuse. Keep her too, though she does ask for tickets too often. 
 
 'Lady Dumbleton. — Too pushing for a person merely rich. Will 
 know one at the opera, all I can do. Besides, has a heap of odious 
 relations. To cut them all dead. No mailer what they say. 
 
 'Duchess of Carberry. — A bore— but a duchess. Must remain, 
 
 ' Mr. Smirk. — An author and a lion, writes beautifully, but wears 
 thirds and knee-buckles. Won't do. 
 
 ' Mrs. Salloun. — My earliest bosom friend : used to be very fond 
 of her but she married a city physician. Cannot possibly go so far. 
 
 6 Evelina. — Another early and dear friend. But she missed that 
 match with Lord B. I was so set upon, and is now an old maid, 
 with neither fortune nor connections. Yery hard, but must be de- 
 nied when she calls.' 
 
 "There were many more entries," said Mr. Manners, " but this 
 is enough to shew the effronlery of the vanity of Lady Feignwell ; 
 and yet she was weak enough to be annoyed at the exposure, and 
 this is what made me say she was not perfect in her class. To be a 
 true heroine in her way, she ought to have been impenetrable to 
 feeling. But what do you think of the picture?" 
 
 " It astonishes me," said 1 ; " she was as you said, worse than 
 frivolous. What did her country neighbours do when she returned 
 among them?" 
 
 "Despised and laughed at her — which, to my surprise, an- 
 noyed her still more. No 5 you see she was not perfect." 
 " Were there many more like her?" 
 
 " So many, that when I had made them all out, it went far to 
 make me take Ihe leave I did of artificial life." 
 
 "One class of your cases, however," said I, "still remains } and 
 as you are giving me the benefit of your experience, I trust you 
 will not think it impertinence if I remind you of it' 
 
OH, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 "You mean," returned he, "when real friendship has been 
 wounded, intimacy dropped, opinion changed, and esteem under- 
 mined. It is certain this did not attend Lady Feignwell, whose 
 glitter, perhaps, dazzled me, but for whom I neither felt friendship, 
 high opinion, or esteem. The case I alluded to was certainly far 
 different. And yet I was wrong to call it a disappointment of ex- 
 pectation, for expectation had been thoroughly realized, and those 
 who are in my mind had not only fulfilled, but gone beyond it. 
 They were a noble pair, whom I knew from youth upwards \ the 
 lady before her marriage. 4 Her father loved me, oft invited me 
 I fell honoured by his notice, and loved the whole family. Our 
 mutual kindness, indeed, lasted for some time, and to her and her 
 husband some of my happiest years were owing. Their doors opened 
 at my approach .5 with them there was always the feast of reason as 
 well as other feasts, and to both I seemed ever welcome. Yet all 
 this changed — not by degrees, not for accountable reasons, not 
 from change of circumstances, but abruptly like a sudden death." 
 
 " How could this be?" 
 
 64 1 suppose from change of character in them, and of habits and 
 powers of amusement in me." 
 u Amusement ! " 
 
 " Yes; for they, the lady especially, seemed to plunge deeper 
 and deeper in worldly distractions; and though every hour ought 
 to have made her more and more independent of them (which, from 
 her accomplishments and a large family, she was formed to be), 
 advancing life only made her more and more studious of ils artificial 
 enjoyments. In the splendour of her lot, therefore, she forgot her 
 younger days, and those earlier friends, who seemed once to have 
 made them sweet?" 
 
 " Forgot her younger days! was she then a parvenue?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! Had she been so, her change would have been more 
 intelligible. As it was, it was sheer caprice, and devotion to worldly 
 objects — to fashion, show, and dissipation. These, in her amiable 
 youth, she was above, and one would have thought her mind would 
 have soared to something higher as she grew older ; but she became 
 only more and more devoted to the 4 fantastic tricks which make 
 the angels weep.' " « 
 
 "And in this you did not imitate her?" 
 
 "No : and as I could not follow her track, but aimed at some- 
 thing better, in doing so I lost, as I said, the power of amusing ■ and, 
 as 1 had thrown myself out of politics, all other power ceased at the 
 same lime. In short, for truth must be lold, I was forgotten, and 
 laid aside as a useless piece of lumber." 
 
 "Astonishing !" said I. "What, without a fault? without neglect 
 on your part? without change of life, or local separation? Again, I 
 say, how can such things be?" 
 
38 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 "Ask the world, and this foolish woman," replied my friend. 
 
 The subject now dropped, though (perhaps reverting to it) he 
 added soon after, "What I have said ought to prepare you for 
 stranger things than this — in fact, whether in political or private 
 friendships, you must look to be drawn on, or drawn off, like a 
 pair of gloves, as convenience, humour, or change of views may 
 dictate.' 1 
 
 Here Mr. Manners ceased ) and, I know not why, but this last 
 part of our conversation made me more serious, or, perhaps I might 
 say, uneasy, than any other I had had with him : for, if such a man, 
 with so much mind, cultivation, good breeding, as well as good 
 birth — instructed in a!I the usages and conventions of men, inde- 
 pendent, and even rich withal— if such a man could, as he said, 
 be dropped, and that for nothing, by one of his oldest friends, what 
 was I to expect, or how escape ! Far better, I thought, to recur to 
 my original destination, the church, and a fellowship, or at worst a 
 village curacy 5 and so I told my adviser. 
 
 "No;" said he. "Unless you feel an almost apostolical zeal and 
 dedication of yourself to this arduous (for it is an arduous) career — 
 unless you have really that call, which the Articles require, and to 
 which all pretend, though so few feel it— the church shall have none 
 of you. You shall not be one of those 
 
 ■ Who, for their bellies' sake, 
 Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.' 
 
 "With sincere conviction, and real holiness of purpose, there 
 is no character so holy as a Christian churchman 5 his very presence 
 inspires veneration, and with it gladness. Be one of these, and 
 welcome-, but if you are, nothing worldly must come near you. 
 Thrones, palaces, and purple, must not be in your thoughts. I 
 would rather you were a clerk, at a hundred a-year, or, what is 
 worse, get your bread as one of those pauvres miserables in this 
 country, the men of letters, than that you should be a trading 
 clergyman." 
 
 "Amen," said 1 5 "but as to men of letters, whom you designate 
 under the cruel appellation you have used, how can the dwellers 
 in the flowery regions of literature be miserable? You might as well 
 call the denizens of your beautiful forest here by the same epithet." 
 
 "My good cousin," replied he, smiling, "you have, I see, a 
 great deal more to learn than you are aware of, and friend Fother- 
 gill, after all, has taught you more of books than the technicalities 
 of the professions of men. Perhaps, in the quiet walks of his college, 
 with all the independence of academical learning, he was under 
 a happy ignorance of the cruel fate of those who are used (and 
 used hardly) as mere instruments or tools of literature. I suppose 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 it never occurred to him to talk to you of the happiness of a book- 
 seller's hack?" 
 
 "As I never thought of being one," said I, " he had no occasion. 
 But what is there so terrible in it?" 
 
 "Ask the word itself, 1 ' replied he, "for what implies more 
 misery? To be worked to death 5 to be imperiously treated by one 
 probably one's inferior in all endowments of mind and education \ 
 to be lorded over, and allow one's self to be so, from ihe conscious- 
 ness that our employer has a better dinner than we have, or that, 
 without him, we should have no dinner at all! Is not this enough 
 to break the spirit of the proudest heart? and would not a potato in 
 a garret, with liberty to move, speak, and look as we listed, be a 
 kingdom to it? When first I heard that villanous word pronounced, 
 all this rushed into my mind." 
 
 "And when and how was this?" 
 
 " In the back-shop of a very eminent man, who by skill and 
 capital had achieved what they always will in this great coun- 
 try, and who, in a worldly view, might fairly enough felicitate 
 himself on his superiority to those who were in his pay. But not 
 the less did it shock me when applied, as it was, to a gentleman of 
 first-rate education, who had spent his all in qualifying himself for 
 a learned profession, in which, not from want of proficiency, but 
 the accidents which attend all professions, he had failed. But thus 
 it is in the lottery of the world. One man shall be taken from flog- 
 ging the derriere of a noble or plebeian schoolboy one day, and 
 placed in the House of Lords the next; while another, with equal, 
 perhaps superior learning, shall drag on a wearied existence, 
 ' passing rich on forty pounds a year/ So here, a gentleman who 
 from his attainments and induslry was qualified, if fortune had so 
 pleased, to be a Lord Chancellor, was reduced (because fortune did 
 not so please) to submit to be called a bookseller's hack. 
 
 " What can the admirer of learning and genius do, when he 
 thinks of the plate of victuals sent from Cave's table to Johnson, 
 impransus (as he signed himself )— what but weep? O ! believe me ? 
 I have been more than once ready to do so when I have seen a 
 starveling author alongside of a fat bookseller, and compared their 
 respective intellects with their respective persons." 
 
 "Your account, said I, " of these children of the Muses makes 
 one not in love with them. And yet I have sometimes thought there 
 must be that in the creative fancy of an author, to say nothing of 
 his pleasure if he succeeds, that must make the occupation very 
 agreeable." 
 
 " Agreed, provided you make it a recreation, not a business; 
 provided you voluntarily follow it as a menial exercise, not be forced 
 to it to pay a milkscore. The wanderer of Parnassus ought, as you 
 have hinted, to be as free as the denizen of the forest. He should 
 
40 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 roam at large, or lay his careless limbs under whatever tree he likes. 
 Compel him to be always climbing, or drive him into the path in 
 which he is to tread, his pleasure and his powers are gone. In 
 plainer language, the man whose food is forced upon him, nauseates 
 and rejects it, whatever its flavour. No ; court the Muse, but seek 
 not to marry her ; or it may fare with you as it has with many a 
 married couple : — 4 when poverty comes in at the door, love flies 
 out of the window.' " 
 
 It is astonishing what an impression all this made upon me, and 
 how well afterwards in the world I came to remember it. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF A GREAT CHANGE IN MY PROSPECTS. 1 — CHARACTER OF LORD CASTLETON, 
 A MINISTER COMME IL Y EN A PEU. 
 
 God send him well .' 
 The court's a learning place. 
 Shakspeare.— All's Well That Ends Well. 
 
 The disquisitions which ended the last chapter were interrupted 
 by the loud blast of a horn at the outer gate. 
 
 " It is the post," said my host, " always an important, perhaps 
 the most important, feature of a day in solitude. It brings you back 
 to the world, for which, with al! our philosophy (as befitting the old 
 apothegm of homo sum)) we probably have always a sort of sneak- 
 ing kindness. Come, let us see what it has brought us." 
 
 At this he took the bag from his butler, and, unlocking it, "What 
 have we here? 1 ' said he, examining a seal, " a coronet? and, I 
 protest, the Castlelon arms ! What can be in the wind? I hope he 
 has not resigned." 
 
 " I hope not," echoed I to myself. 
 
 " By my faith, no 5 " continued Mr. Manners, smiling as he went 
 over the lines, till at last he exclaimed, " By Jupiter, this is the 
 most extraordinary coincidence, as to lime and wishes, that ever I 
 met with." 
 
 " May I ask in what?" said I, on tenter-hooks with curiosity and 
 interest. 
 
 " You certainly may," answered he, " for it shall go hard with 
 us if you may not be much concerned in it. In a word, his last con- 
 fidential eleve and protege, Mr. Wilmot, is promoted, and leaves 
 him, and he does me the honour to consult me about a young roue 
 of a relation of mine, whom I mentioned to him a year or two ago, 
 but who has since, from being plunged in perpetual scrapes, some 
 of (hem disgraceful, lost all chance of success, at least here. Not a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 41 
 
 small part of the coincidence is, that he tells me he has written to 
 Fothergill on the same subject, having, as he said, long resolved to 
 look no more to the idlers who throng the pave, depending upon 
 the strength of their connections to be pushed into situations for 
 which they are not fit Now, my good friend, between your cousin 
 Fothergill and your cousin Manners, I think it will be hard if we 
 do not place you on Mr. Wilmot's stool in the bureau of this emi- 
 nent minister and accomplished gentleman, the Earl of Castleion." 
 
 His countenance shewed a pleasure as he said this, which left 
 me no doubt of the sincerity of his intentions ; and the remem- 
 brance of that benevolent and animated countenance, thus fraught 
 with zeal and kindness to the stranger he had so warmly, yet so 
 remarkably taken up, was always the most striking of the many 
 mementoes I cherish of this excellent person. 
 
 Yet my heart quaked not a little at the news thus communicated. 
 I did not know how to look. At first I thought he was playing upon 
 me ; but that his manner forbade. I then fancied I was in a dream, 
 and I was some lime before I could answer. 
 
 44 You seem not to like my post," said he. 
 
 44 No : I am only astonished and lost what to think of it 5 and 
 what most puzzles me is, to know how almost to understand, cer- 
 tainly how to thank you for this wonderful good-will." 
 
 44 If that be all," returned he, 44 we will put off thanks to some 
 other time. At present we must act; and so while I write to my 
 lord, do you write to Fothergill. He by this knows you are here, 
 and under what circumstances, and of course that I have been ap- 
 plied to as well as himself. He will, of course, too, join his recom- 
 mendation to mine, and we must then rest upon our oars." 
 
 With this we both sat down to a writing apparatus, and concocted 
 our letters. He inspected and approved of mine, but he would not 
 shew me his, saying he wished to spare my blushes. 
 
 The letters were dispatched, and it is not easy to describe the 
 state of intense interest, a compound of hope and fear, which pos- 
 sessed all my nerves till the answer from the earl arrived. 
 
 In two days, during which I was domesticated at the Grange, it 
 arrived, short, pithy, and sweet. 4i If," said he, 44 Mr. De Clifford 
 is half what you say, I beg the favour of his coming to town directly 
 for though I am quite alive to what you say of the shortness of your 
 acquaintance with him, and might fear something from your ro- 
 mance, yet FolhergiU's letter in answer to mine, which I received 
 by the same post as your's, and which recommended Mr. De Clif- 
 ford, without any communication with you, has set me quile at ease 
 on that point." 
 
 Manners, on reading this to me, congratulated me, and said with 
 emphasis. " T have no fears for you ; the day is our own.' 
 The next post brought answers from Fothergill, and what was 
 
DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 certainly of consequence, the reply, in the shape of a trunk, to the 
 demand I had made for my wardrobe, and I began in earnest to 
 prepare myself for by far the most important step hitherto of my life. 
 
 And here, ere I proceed to the field of action, it may notbe amiss 
 if I give a passing picture of the great person who was to have so 
 much concern in my future fate 5 nor, in doing so, will I consult 
 any thing but truth. 
 
 John Earl of Caslleton, at this lime about fifty years of age, was 
 of a very high family, and nursed from infancy in the courts both of 
 royally and Ihe Muses*, for he possessed Ihe favour of both. His 
 paternal ancestors were distinguished for abilities, and energy in 
 employing them 5 his maternal, for a wide spread of noble alliances, 
 and the acknowledged superiority of their elegance and accom- 
 plishments, which made them the themes of panegyric with wils 
 and courtiers both at home and abroad. 
 
 Lord Caslleton's father ( perfectly competent to do so ) had minutely 
 inspected his education, and initiated him in the politics of the lime. 
 His mother, who, from being a celebrated beauty, and the ornament 
 of the court, had become a pattern to her sex for all the virtues of 
 private life, had instilled into him notions of the dignity, as well as 
 the purity, of women, which he always afterwards preserved. 
 
 High-mindedness, and contempt of every thing mean, or ap- 
 pertaining to selfishness or cunning, were his own leading charac- 
 teristics; to which was added by education, and his position in 
 society, a remarkable polish, yet with often a playfulness of manners, 
 though capable of beingmuch ruffled, when, disgusted, as he easily 
 was, by any departure from honour in those with whom he had 
 intercourse, or even any marked solecism in good-breeding or self- 
 respect in any person he encountered. 
 
 As to his ambition, we might apply to him what Swift said of 
 Lord Oxford, that he had as much virtue as could possibly consist 
 with a love of power 5 and his love of power was no greater than 
 what is common to men of his superior capacity. 
 
 Long experience of the secret motives of men, different from 
 those which appeared outwardly on the surface, had made him wary, 
 and he lid not easily give either his confidence or his favour lo 
 what he called men trained to the world, even though young 5 much 
 rather, as he professed, to those in whom, from being wholly re- 
 moved from public life, he confided more than in those who were 
 subservient to him from views of their own : (I mean Manners and 
 Fothergill). He would trust and patronise an absolute tyro as to 
 affairs, or even as to the conventional customs of society, provided 
 he had an ingenuous nature and a well-stored mind. Hence he so 
 easily fell in with what these early friends of his were pleased lo 
 propose in regard to me. 
 
 As he had originally cultivated philosophy and a love of letters, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 43 
 
 had he been born in a private or humble station, by his disposition 
 to elegant and liberal studies, he could have made himself suffi- 
 ciently happy without power. Vacare litteris was still a favourite 
 maxim of his, particularly when things went wrong, either through 
 the struggles of rivals, or the efforts of faction, in which case he 
 was often on the qui vive to abandon place, and live, as he said, 
 for himself. 
 
 He had been some time a widower, and during a pretty long 
 marriage, as a husband, he had never ceased to be a lover. He had 
 been left without children, but his house continued to be what it 
 had been in his married life, the resort of elegant society, both male 
 and female 5 and though perhaps the political predominated, he was 
 never more pleased than when it was extended to the eminent in 
 letters, in science, or in wit. 
 
 Such was the person to whose protection I was about to be com- 
 mitted by the kindness of my two friends, and under whose auspices 
 I was now to hazard myself in public life. 
 
 My introduction to him was rendered easier by the kindness of 
 Mr. Manners, who accompanied me to town for that purpose; and 
 though when the porter let us into the hall of his magnificent house 
 in Grosvenor-street I felt a little overcome with the power and 
 wealth of the minister, yet, as I felt that I also was a gentleman, 
 and had a heart and a mind, and was conscious of nothing that I had 
 ever done to disgrace them, I walked firmly and erect to the door 
 of the cabinet where Lord Castleton generally passed his mornings. 
 
 We were conducted by a messenger in the royal livery, and what 
 struck me was, that we had to go through a long room, where 
 several gentlemen sat enveloped in papers. Among these I presumed 
 I was myself to take my seat. 
 
 The room where we were received was handsomely furnished 
 with crimson hangings, and studded all over with cabinet pictures 
 in rich gilt frames, my lord being a great admirer, and, indeed, 
 patron of painting. A glazed door opened into a small but pretty 
 garden of flowering shrubs, over which the eye took in the trees of 
 Hyde Park, certainly not comparable to the beautiful forest I had 
 left, but which, for London, and my notions of it, was an unexpected 
 pleasure. 
 
 I had, however, little leisure for this sort of observation, being 
 absorbed by a very different object, in Lord Castleton himself. 
 When we entered he was sitting alone at his desk, and so intent, 
 that at first he did not hear us 5 but the messenger announcing Mr. 
 Manners, he immediately rose, and by his cordial reception shewed 
 how much he esteemed that gentleman. 
 
 When I was presented, his manner was of course rather more 
 ceremonious, though 1 should not say it was cold, or even formaL 
 With unaffected grace he shook hands with me, and hoped we 
 
14 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 should be better acquainted ; adding, frankly, that I must be a for- 
 tunate man to unite the suffrages of such an old stager of the world 
 as his friend Manners, and such a cloistered scholar as my relation 
 Folhergill. To do away , however, any appearance of disparagement 
 which that might imply to the latter, he inquired after him with 
 interest, and even affection, saying there was no man for whose 
 abilities, integrity, and strong natural sense, he had a greater, if so 
 great, an esteem. 
 
 AH this seemed purposely meant to put me at my ease in rather 
 a trying situation, and it was only a mark of that tact and kindness 
 united, in which no man exceeded, few equalled, this truly noble 
 person. 
 
 After this, he fell upon what he, with the same view, called 
 parish business. 
 
 " From what I understand," said he, " Mr. De Clifford, you will 
 have here very different scenes and occupations from what you have 
 been accustomed to ; but from what I also hear, this will soon sink 
 to nothing before one of your mind. I trust our connection will be 
 as agreeable to you, as I have no doubt it will be to me. You will, 
 however, have no sinecure, as I dare say Mr. Manners will have 
 told you, and I have the pleasure of believing what I certainly did 
 not of any of your predecessors — that you would not like your 
 charge if it were." 
 
 He then told me that my scene of action would be principally at 
 the office in Downing-slreet, though frequently where I was, as he 
 did a great deal of business at home. " And if you please," added 
 he, " I wi)l shew you your den, where I must always have you at 
 my right hand." 
 
 So saying, he opened a pannel door, which led into a small ves- 
 tibule, on the other side of which was a closet fitted with desks, in 
 which he said I should be installed the next day. 
 
 "To-day," said he, u you would no doubt wish to look about 
 you, especially as a stranger to London. You will, however, I hope, 
 with Mr. Manners, dine with me here at six, till when, I am afraid 
 (and he pulled out his watch), I must bid you farewell." 
 
 It was evident he had an engagement, and we took our leave 5 
 Mr. Manners delighted to find him, as he said, the self-same man 
 he had been for twenty years ; I, absolutely charmed with the mix- 
 ture of high breeding and natural, cheerful bonhommie, which 
 had marked my reception. 
 
 Our conversation on this lasted long after we got to our hotel in 
 Hanover-square, and consumed much of the time between that and 
 the hour of dinner. 
 
 That dinner was a private one ; not a creature besides ourselves. 
 Even the servants were discarded, and each of us had his own 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 45 
 
 dumb-wailer by his side ; Lord Castleton having an extra one lor 
 the wine, over which he presided, helping us as we wished. 
 
 I was a little surprised at a privacy so unexpected, at the house 
 of a nobleman and minister of state j but as I had already learned a 
 maxim that it was ill breeding to shew surprise at any thing, I 
 kept it to myself. I afterwards discovered from Manners, that 
 there was a reason for it, and that it arose from the desire of Lord 
 Castleton to study his new secretary with as little restraint as pos- 
 sible, either upon himself or him. The conversation was therefore 
 easy, turning at first upon the belles lettres, in which I was fre- 
 quenlly asked for my opinion, which I gave freely, but never 
 offered without being asked. I found afterwards, from Mr. Manners, 
 that this was not unremarked to my advantage by Lord Castleton. 
 
 We afterwards fell upon history, English and foreign, in which 
 our host was pleased to say he heard from Fothergill I had made 
 more progress than is usual with an Oxford undergraduate. With- 
 out, therefore, alarming me as a catechiser, he adroitly allowed 
 the conversation to lead that way, and seemed well enough pleased 
 with my knowledge of the thirty years' war, the age of Louis XIV., 
 the Revolution, and the public men, as well as wits, of the time of 
 Queen Anne. In this, loo, he drew me out by his own acquaintance 
 with them, rather than that I abruptly volunteered what knowledge 
 I had. 
 
 Our afternoon was therefore most agreeable, and he assured 
 Manners that he believed he should be more than satisfied with me. 
 All this that good friend told me with pleasure previous to his 
 returning the next day to his beloved Grange. 
 
 Thus left to myself, I found it was as much necessity as duty to 
 attach myself entirely to the study of my new patron, and the exact 
 fulfilment of his wishes. Nor was this difficult, for his mind was 
 without tricks 5 courts had not spoilt him ; and when he found a 
 character as clear from deceit as himself, he gave it all his protec- 
 tion and all his good-will. 
 
 I attended him by appointment the day after our dinner, to take 
 possession of what he always called my den, and he set before me 
 a boxfull of papers of which he desired a precis as my morning's task. 
 
 "The evenings," said he, a you will have to yourself, and I 
 need not tell you the more you pass them in the best company the 
 better for your improvement, and therefore for your happiness. 1 ' 
 
 Seeing me look embarrassed at this, he good-naturedly asked 
 the reason, and I fairly told him that not only I had no acquain- 
 tances in London, but that, from being a mere Oxford recluse, I 
 felt without that confidence which a knowledge of the style of so- 
 ciety he mentioned alone could give. 
 
 He laughed, and said, from what he could observe, he thought 
 I should do very well. 
 
16 DE CLIFFORD < 
 
 " However/' added he, " we must try to initiate you. I will not 
 affront you by telling you to read Chesterfield • and perhaps an 
 accomplished female is better for such a purpose than all the male 
 instructors in the world. By the way, I have a large dinner and 
 evening party to-morrow, which you will do well, and which as 
 my aid-de-camp it is a sort of duty in you, to attend. Let us see 
 what that will produce." 
 
 Then, recommending the precis to my best care, as it was to be 
 laid before the king, he took his leave for some hours. 
 
 The last inlimation was rather awful, and I bestowed all my pains 
 on the task, which, however, from !he clearness of the papers Lord 
 Castlelon had himself drawn, was so little difficult, that on his 
 return he expressed, to my great pleasure, the highest satisfaction 
 in what I had done, and we parted in mutual good humour — not 
 always the case between patron and protege. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ? A GREAT AND ACCOMPLISHED LADY TO WHOM DE CLIFFORD WAS INTRODUCED, 
 AND THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS IT WAS LIKELY TO HAVE IN GIVING HIM A KNOW- 
 LEDGE OF THE GREAT WORLD 
 
 Sweet lady, you have given me life and living. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Merchant of Venice. 
 
 Lord Castleton had told me he would not affront me by 
 recommending me to read Chesterfield. That was only with a view 
 to taking my part among fine people. Manners, however, before 
 he left me, recommended me a page of the same authority, with a 
 view to my situation with my patron, and which, he said, I would 
 do well always to remember, bearing in mind the numbers who 
 had failed, for want of doing so, with this very nobleman. The pas- 
 sage was this : — 
 
 /'A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise him- 
 self, but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round 
 some man of great power and interest. You must belong to a mi- 
 nister some time before anybody can belong to you » and an invio- 
 lable fidelity to that minister, even in his disgrace, will be merito- 
 rious, and recommend you to the next. Ministers love apersonal, 
 much more than a party attachment.'''' 
 
 I thought this excellent information, coming from such an ex- 
 perienced party man himself. I resolved to profit by it, and, from 
 what I had seen, I was pleased to think that Lord Castleton was a 
 man to command one's personal attachment, exclusive of all the 
 attractions created by his power. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 47 
 
 Pondering these things., I employed the time previous to the 
 great dinner to which the earl had bidden me, in making little 
 arrangements for my future comforts. I was still a demy of Maud- 
 lin, and resolved to keep it, as Prior did his fellowship, to give 
 him " a crust and a clean shirt," after he and his parly had been 
 shipwrecked in the world. Meantime, my salary from Lord Castle- 
 ton was 500/. a-year, with which I took a pretty lodging in Green- 
 street, to be always near my patron, and went to some expense in 
 my wardrobe, to make the figure called for by my new position. 
 
 The party at Lord Castleton's was one of those grand ones, as 
 Uiey were called, which as a minister he was occasionally expected 
 to give | I was rather anxious, therefore, as to its effecl upon my 
 appearance and manners, and how to acquit myself in a scene so 
 entirely new to me. The family at Foljambe had been the only one 
 of any great fashion with which I had been acquainted, and the 
 retired habits of their dignity had prevented the display of it so as 
 to occasion me any very particular fears of a failure on my part. 
 In my last visit, too, God knows their afflictions made them lillle 
 able to dazzle any one by an exhibition of what may be termed high 
 manners. 
 
 Here, however, I was called upon to make my first appearance, 
 as it were, upon a theatre royal — J, who had never figured except 
 upon country boards, and little even of that. I had, nevertheless, 
 something within me that told me I should not fail. The self-res- 
 pect which had not abandoned me at Oxford, where every thing 
 was new, would, I thought, bear me through this trial, not severer 
 in proportion than that I had undergone. 
 
 Exclusive of this, the man I had the most, and indeed only cause 
 16 fear, had seemed, by his consideration and urbanity, lo put all 
 fear to sleep; and as for others, why should I fear them? They 
 were but human, like myself, and if they were ill-bred enough to 
 despise me for not knowing forms I had never been taught, I felt 
 I could despise them with more justice in my turn, for not having 
 common sense any more than common good nature. 
 
 As it was, therefore, I felt bold, and even promised my inquiring 
 disposition some pleasant food in examining the new habits and 
 manners to which I expected to be introduced. I was even impa- 
 tient for the dinner hour, and could not be persuaded, by a sort 
 of valet de place whom I had hired, that if I waited half an hour 
 after the time appointed, I should yet find none of the company 
 assembled. 
 
 I was in Grosvenor Street exactly as the clock struck six — a 
 dinner hour fashionably late in those days— and found that my 
 valet knew these things, at least, belter than myself; for not a 
 creature was in the drawing-room, not even Lord Castle ton, whom 
 I at least expected to see prepared to receive his guests. So far 
 
48 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 from it, the company was more than half assembled before he 
 made his appearance. As they, however, all knew one another, 
 nobody felt any awkwardness but myself. 
 
 Both ladies and gentlemen, as they dropt in, levelled their eye- 
 glasses at me, but instantly lowered them on finding that they did 
 not know me, treating me as if I were one of the tables or chairs. 
 Natural benignity told me this was wrong, and I thought not better 
 of these persons of the highest English monde for this sample of 
 their breeding. 
 
 While reflecting upon this, as if to relieve me, Granville, whom 
 I had not seen for twelve months, and thought still on the conti- 
 nent, was announced. He knew everybody in the room ; and seeing 
 him accost me with his usual friendliness, all the glasses were again 
 pointed at me for a minute, and again lowered, as if, curiosity 
 being satisfied, I had a right to no more. 
 
 At length, my lord himself entered, and by presenting me to 
 several of his guests, gave me a sort of passport to all, and relieved 
 me from the embarrassment of feeling alone in a crowd. What 
 struck me was, that he seemed under no sort of consciousness from 
 having allowed his company to be so long assembled without him \ 
 nor did they in the smallest degree appear to think that, being a 
 minister, it was out of the common course of things. I had now 
 been introduced to several lords and gentlemen, and several ladies 
 and gentlewomen, but the inveterate immovabiliy of the English 
 character displayed itself even in this miserable quarter of an hour 
 before dinner \ for, as to that repast, nobody seemed to recollect 
 for what purpose he or she was invited 5 an equanimity which 
 rather surprised me. There was an evident pause for something, 
 which I could not expound. 
 
 At length it was explained by the arrival of a lady, seemingly of 
 superior order, and really worth waiting for — a being of no or- 
 dinary quality or pretensions, in whom the very first glance of the 
 eye and the first vibration of the ear discovered a marked difference 
 and superiority as to dress, manners, and general ton de societe, 
 which threw all others into shade. Though not absolutely young, 
 she was eminently beautiful, or rather handsome, and her form 
 and manner of that peculiar cast to set off impressively the richness 
 of her attire, in which her diamonds seemed only a natural part of 
 herself. 
 
 Had this lady been merely outwardly beautiful, I might have 
 been tempted to have exclaimed with Prior— 
 
 " O ! what perfections must that person share; 
 Who fairest is esteem'd where all are fair ! " 
 
 But her beauty was the least of her attractions, for her first bloom 
 was past. Yet though, perhaps, thirty years of age, there was a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 49 
 
 set of features which spoke such nobleness, combined with such 
 frankness, such modest intelligence, and at the same time such 
 self-possession, the effect of constant intercourse with, or rather 
 of presiding in, good company, that you would have been sorry 
 to have exchanged the woman for the girl : for she had all the 
 sparkle of a girl's first impression, with all the ease of deportment 
 which none but a woman can display. 
 
 As I was lately from Oxford, and not very long from school, 
 perhaps a little mythological pedantry may be forgiven me, though 
 now a minister's secretary, when I thought I saw in this superior 
 lady the majesty of Juno, the grace of Venus, and the sense of 
 Minerva '. 
 
 It is the observaiion, I think, of Chesterfield, that in every com- 
 pany or society there is always some one person who takes a lead — 
 one who by a sort of tacit consent is distinguished from the rest, 
 and whom, par excellence, all are disposed to consider and obey 
 as the lord or lady of the ascendant for the time being. Such cer- 
 tainly was this eminent person. 
 
 She seemed to know everybody in the room, and be perfectly 
 at her ease with them 5 was particularly so with Lord Castleton, 
 who I found was her uncle, and gracious with Granville, who was 
 most profound in his attention to her. This she appeared to re- 
 ceive with good-will, but as if it was entirely her due 5 and while 
 1 was wondering with myself who this queen could be — so sur- • 
 rounded by subjects — judge my surprise, when Lord Castleton ad- 
 vancing, presented me to her as his niece, Lady Hungerford. 
 
 From the mere glimpse I had had of her in Binfield churchyard, 
 muffled in her walking disguise, no wonder if I could not recollect 
 her-, but now the truth rushed upon me, and association made her 
 of ten limes more consequence even than she was from herself 
 alone. Could I indeed forget that interesting bust, in that loo in- 
 teresting surreptitious visit to the summer-house at Foljambe Park ? 
 
 Yet she wanted not this association to create in me the most pure 
 admiration, which indeed I only shared in common with all others 
 who knew her. To account for this, let me indulge my readers and 
 myself with a more detailed memorial of her. 
 
 Nobly allied, and the widow of a viscount, of great personal in- 
 fluence 5 with moreover a large jointure, which gave her great com- 
 mand of the materiel {qy display in the fashionable world : had she 
 no further pretensions than these, she must have taken a high so- 
 ciety. But she had others of a still higher character. 
 
 Still what may be thought young 5 very handsome, though of ma- 
 turer beauty • very elegant, very accomplished, and with no small 
 portion of talent ( particularly for observing all that was passing 
 
 1 In my old age I am tempted to suppress this observation, as pedantic schoolboy non- 
 sense ; but as I was scarcely at years of discretion when I made it, I let it stand. 
 
 11. 4 
 
50 
 
 DE CLIFFORD J 
 
 around her ), she felt herself a great centre of attraction in various 
 circles, whether of the idle or busy, the literary or political, the 
 elegant or rational. 
 
 What was a great aid to this, she was of a frank and friendly na- 
 ture, and would rather do good than ill ; and though with wit, suf- 
 ficient to make folly ridiculous where it intruded, yet never seek- 
 ing, unless he deserved it, to make any person uncomfortable. 
 
 Hence, she was really courted for more than her mere fashion, 
 and while all admired the peculiar ease and fascination of her man- 
 ner, they gave her still more credit for her talents and sense. Young 
 men were particularly fond of cultivating her acquaintance, and she 
 in return was pleased ( as indeed no one had better means ) to bring 
 young men forward in good society. 
 
 Lord Castleton, I afterwards found, was very proud of her, often 
 calling her " that superior woman, my niece." 
 
 Of such a person, who would suppose that the decayed gentle- 
 man, the Yorkshire farmer's son, could ever obtain the commonest 
 notice, especially on a first introduction? But so it was, and by 
 means which perhaps may seem still more surprising ; — to explain 
 which, let us proceed by steps. 
 
 In times long gone by, now talked of as we talk of romance — 
 York and Lancaster to wit — the Lord Hungerfbrd, decapitated as a 
 Lancasterian by Edward IV., left a daughter, Mary, who being 
 restored in blood by Henry VII., carried her grandfather's title of 
 Hungerford, together with his estates, into the family of Hastings, 
 by her marriage with George, first Earl of Huntingdon. 
 
 The connection thus produced between the two families was 
 never forgotten among its most remote branches to the latest time 5 
 so that the late viscount, and of course his accomplished wife, were 
 perfectly well known to the family of Foljambe Park. 
 
 This was marked by an annual visit while the viscount was alive, 
 and still more by having produced a warm and mutual affection 
 between Bertha and Lady Hungerford, begun in the childhood of 
 the former, who still continued to call her by the endearing title of 
 chere maman. 
 
 Lady Hungerford had only been a fortnight from the Park, where 
 she had passed three days with its inmates, when it was thus my 
 fortune to be introduced to her notice by Lord Castleton. Judge my 
 feelings, when, with the grace and frankness that belonged to her, 
 far away from that haughty air of protection which many in the 
 same situation would have exhibited, she said, 
 
 " I know more of Mr. De Clifford than perhaps he thinks, for I 
 have lately seen his friends, Mr. and Miss Hastings, who talked of 
 him with much esteem. " 
 
 I own this flushed my cheek, and I could only answer they were 
 too good. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 51 
 
 " Nay," said Lady Hungerford, " that is but a cold reception of 
 their recollection, especially as they accompanied it with many kind 
 particulars; which, however, I shall not tell you, for fear the phi- 
 losophy which they say belongs to you should be pul to the test." 
 
 She said this archly, and with a smile, and Granville, who was 
 watching us, and saw it, whispered me, after she was separated from 
 us by other company — "The smile of that lady is worth a million." 
 
 What this meant I did not know, but from the account I have 
 given of Lady Hungerford, the result of after-acquaintance, it will 
 be easily understood. 
 
 In fact, it was my great good fortune to find favour with this ele- 
 gant lady 5 for, some days afterwards, Lord Castleton told me he 
 had been speaking to her about me, " when," said he, 6i she ob- 
 served that at our dinner party she liked your manner, which was 
 quiet, yet collected ; modest, yet with no mauvaise honte; that you 
 seemed a youth of promise ; and that as to your present unacquaint- 
 ance with les usages, which I told her gave you serious alarm, 
 that would soon mend with observation, and, as she was pleased to 
 say, my tutorage \ to which I could not help replying, that her own 
 instruction would be far more efficacious." 
 
 At this, Lord Castleton said, she smiled, and observed that 
 Granville, since our dinner party, had told her so much about me, 
 that she was almost inclined to undertake it. 
 
 <c I tell you all this," said Lord Castleton, " to give you the en- 
 couragement you say you want, to put you more at your ease in the 
 circles in which you are to move, and to which you have been hi- 
 therto a stranger — a fault which, as Lady Hungerford says, will 
 very soon mend, particularly if she should really choose to patro- 
 nize you, as she has done by more than one young ir,an. For, give 
 me leave to tell you," added he, " that no female in England or 
 France has it more in her power to bring forward ? youths un- 
 known to fame,' to a respectable, and even a distinguished place in 
 society, if they are fit for it." 
 
 Lord Castleton concluded with telling me that I had been also 
 much obliged to the Hastings family for their mention of me to his 
 niece, and advised me to present myself to her that very morning. 
 
 u She will, I dare say, see you," said he; u and if she does, 
 though very penetrating in observation, do not be afraid of her, and 
 above all,. do not act, nor affect either to set off your acquirements, 
 or veil what you may think your deficiencies. Be what you are, 
 natural and unaffected ; you will find your account in it." 
 
 I thanked Lord Castleton quite as much for this as for any of his 
 other favours, for I was really much impressed with Lady Hunger- 
 ford, and gladly obeyed his suggestion to call upon her that morn- 
 ing. I went, therefore, immediately to Berkeley Square, was let in, 
 and found her in her boudoir, so occupied with a book, that at first 
 
52 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 she did not hear me announced. The book I saw, on her pulling 
 it down, was Shakspeare, and the play Cymbeline. 
 
 The boudoir breathed nothing but elegance, and from an abun- 
 dant supply of beautiful flowers, all the freshness of spring. She 
 seemed herself a magnificent rose. Marbles, alabasters, mirrors, 
 pendules, and well-bound books, surrounded her 5 every thing was 
 recherche. 
 
 But it was her dress— though only a morning one, so inimitably 
 put on, and so gracefully adapted to the airiness of her shape, and 
 the unaffected, I had almost said, the careless grace of her move- 
 ments— that most fixed me. This dress, or rather the grace with 
 which it was worn, were I to try a hundred years, I never could 
 describe. Luckily, it has been done inimitably already, by one who 
 must have drawn it from the Lady Hungerford of his time, aided 
 by the charm of his own imagination : — 
 
 " Give me a look, give me a face, 
 That makes simplicity a grace ; 
 Robes loosely flowing, hair as free;— 
 Such sweet neglect more taketh me, 
 Than all the adulieries of art, 
 
 That strike mine eye but not my heart." *> 
 
 In this apparently sweet neglect, but real propriety of dress, Lady 
 Hungerford seemed an enchanlress in her faery palace. How dif- 
 ferent from any thing I had ever seen in the common-place life I 
 had led, confined, with the one exception of Foljambe Park, to 
 Oxford, or my own homely home. To be sure, Foljambe Park was 
 rich and imposing, and Bertha herself a sweet daughter of elegance; 
 but her's was Ihe elegance of nature alone 5 Lady Hungerford's, of 
 nature united with just so much art as could supply ornament where 
 it might be wanted, and no more. 
 
 She received me with that genuine politeness, equally removed 
 from ceremony and familiarity, which, from pulling you at your 
 ease, has been called artificial good-nature, but here the good- 
 nature seemed innate. 
 
 "I am obliged to you, Mr. De Clifford," said she, "for this 
 visit, for, exclusive of Lord Castlelon being so inleresled about 
 you, you are the friend of those dear friends of mine, the Hastings, 
 and also of another old friend, Mr. Granville, for whom I have 
 great respect; nay, I also have had the honour of knowing, and 
 being in my girlhood very much afraid of, that 4 potent, grave, and 
 reverend signer,' Mr. Fothergili, when he was the inmate of Lord 
 Castlelon, and who, I believe, was your tutor. Thus, then, you 
 must think yourself any thing but an absolute stranger." 
 
 This seemed charmingly frank, and I returned my acknowledg- 
 ments as well as I could, and said something about condescension, 
 when she stopt me short, and said with animation, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 53 
 
 " Condescension is a word which I neither like nor admit, ex- 
 cept on high days and holydays, or at court, where every thing is 
 sophisticated. Now, I have been told that you are any thing but 
 sophisticated — that Nature is your goddess — and that, at present 
 at least, you are not able to call either persons or things but by 
 their right names. I own this to me is a phenomenon which I 
 seldom see, though it pleases me when I do. But as I have been 
 lold, too, thai you are very proud, I am sure you would wish to 
 discard condescension from your vocabulary • so we will have no 
 more of it." 
 
 All this while I was standing, and she went on therefore : 
 
 «* Now sit down and talk to me, not as a fine lady, as perhaps I 
 have been represented to you, but as one who loves ingenuousness 
 wherever it can be found ; so be as ingenuous as you please. To be 
 so myself, however, I must tell you (here she looked at her pendule) 
 that I have just one quarter of an hour, and no more, to give you, 
 for I have an appointment at three with a very great lady who 
 waits for nobody, and which, therefore, I must attend." 
 
 Who would not be encouraged by such a speech, and such de- 
 meanour? and yet the very frankness of it abashed me ; for it seemed 
 to interdict all common-place matters, and I knew not enough of 
 her, or perhaps was too desirous to say something agreeable, to 
 know where to begin. 
 
 She saw this, and was probably amused, for she said, in a rally- 
 ing tone, 
 
 "Come; why don't you take me at my word, for I know you 
 
 can? You would not be so silent if you were either at Foljambe 
 
 Park, or with your friend Mr. Granville." 
 
 At this I felt myself reddening uncomfortably, and stammered out, 
 " Though your ladyship will not permit the word condescension, 
 
 I may at least say you are very good, which I am sure I feel you 
 
 to be." 
 
 " I know not what yoa call good," replied she; "but I have no 
 scruple to say that Lord Custleton's and Mr. Granville's account of 
 you, to say nothing of Mr. Hastings (O! how I waited to hear his 
 daughter joined with him, but in vain), has given me an interest 
 about you. I hear you are very romantic, though very natural; 
 very proud, though very humble; in short, a contradiction, and I 
 love contradictions, at least if no more than what I was wrapt up 
 in when you were announced, in an author who I am also told you 
 revere as a demi-god, and can say him by heart." 
 
 At this she took up the play she was busy with on my arrival, 
 and pointed out the passage that then had so much engaged her 
 
 " O! thou goddess, 
 Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st 
 
54 DE CLIFFORD ] 
 
 In these two princely boys ! They are as gentle 
 As zephyr blowing below the violet, 
 Not wagging his sweet head : and yet as rough, 
 Their royal blood enchaf d, as the rudest wind, 
 That by the top doth take the mountain pine, 
 And makes him stoop to the vale." 
 
 She read this with precision and feeling, adding, "but I must 
 give you a various reading upon this, proposed by Mr. Granville 
 (for it was he who applied this passage to you), and said that for 
 ' royal blood,' we must read 4 De Clifford blood.' Is it so?" 
 
 Though all this was very personal, I cannot say but I was 
 charmed. I was pleased with the mere thought that I was of suf- 
 ficient consequence for her to be occupied about me, and still more 
 with her manner of letting me know it. I saw in her a woman of 
 the very first breeding in the country $ full of the most agreeable 
 qualities, and, withal, the intimate friend of a person I had adored 
 but despaired of 5 and yet condescending (for I must use the word) 
 to be pleased in making a comparatively humble creature pleased 
 with himself. 
 
 Her confidence excited mine 5 1 threw off my constraint, and my 
 mind gave itself up to the pleasure which a participation of con- 
 genial sentiments, when inequality is forgotten, never fails to 
 produce. 
 
 This congeniality was here called forth by the play from which 
 she had quoted the lines which she said Granville had applied to 
 me 5 and, once upon Cymbeline 3 we soon fell upon other passages, 
 and I had the happiness of finding that all I said of the beautiful 
 character of Imogen met her own feelings in every point; and 
 when the pendule struck three, she seemed sorry, saying, with 
 peculiar grace, she was not surprised at all that Granville and Miss 
 Hastings had said of me. 
 
 She, however, told me that Lord Castleton had informed her of 
 all the tormenting difficulties in which I felt plunged, from being a 
 stranger to the new world I was in — its manners and maxims — and, 
 above all, as to the mysteries of what is called fashionable life. To 
 be instructed in this, she told me with a smile, that Lord Castleton 
 had asked leave to send me to her school, which, from the specimen 
 of the scholar, she said she was very willing to allow. 
 
 " So, as you now know the school-room," added she, " I shall 
 hope to see you again. Besides, I may be a scholar as well as you \ 
 for while I teach you the beau monde, you may teach me Shak- 
 speare; and now adieu, for I see I am summoned. There is not 
 time even for a take-leave compliment." 
 
 The meaning of this was, that one of the royal coaches was at 
 the door to lake her to the palace, where she was in high favour. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 55 
 
 as well as place ; and I proceeded to my Utile lodging in Green 
 Street, with the sort of confused pleasantness which a man feels 
 when he wakes from a busy and crowded, but very delightful dream. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CONTAINING A VERY LEARNED DISSERTATION UPON FASHION, IN WHICH A LADY 
 OF THE FIRST FASHION DISTINGUISHES HERSELF. 
 
 The plague of such antick, lisping, affectiog fantasticoes. Why, is not this 
 a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these 
 strange flies, these fashion-mongers, who stand so much on the new form, 
 that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench ? 
 
 Shakspeare.— Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 I trust that the picture of the delightful lady whom I attempted 
 to set before my readers in the last chapter, has created the interest 
 for her which she deserves. 
 
 Lord Castleton was pleased with my description of the inter- 
 course I had with her, and still more with the account she gave of 
 it herself. 
 
 "You cannot," said he, "cultivate her too much — that is, if 
 Granville will permit you." 
 
 These words surprised me, for I thought more was meant than 
 met the ear. It had occurred to me, as indeed may be remembered, 
 that the only cause of Granville's power to resist Bertha was his 
 heart being already occupied ; and it now struck me from what I 
 had seen and heard, that Lady Hungerford was the amulet that pro- 
 tected him. She was certainly the magnet that drew and kept him 
 so long at Paris. She was the reason, best known to himself] 
 which enabled him to see, speak to, serve, and admire Bertha with- 
 out loving her. In short, Lady Hungerford, I supposed, was the 
 Sacharissa who had rendered Bertha no more than an Amoret. 
 
 Well 5 I gave him joy. I was sincerely glad 5 for, from what I 
 could observe, his Sacharissa was disposed to be more kind than 
 Waller's. And yet 
 
 Ah ! if it were not for those and yets, how many hearts would 
 be spared anxiety ! how unfounded would be the complaint, that 
 " the course of true love never did run smooth." 
 
 Yes 5 there was a strong " and yet " against poor Granville. For, 
 with all his high connections, talents, reputation, admittance, he 
 was but a younger brother, with a younger brother's fortune. 
 
 Yet (for there was a yet on the other side) five thousand a year 
 
 jointure, and love ! if there was love ! 
 
56 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 From all this it will appear that I was reasoning upon my own 
 case; for in truth I now discovered, if my suspicion was right, that 
 Granville's case was very little different from mine-, in which I only 
 forgot the little circumstances that my father was a farmer, his a 
 courtier and a man of fortune 5 his mistress at least fond of his com- 
 pany 5 while mine had allowed me to depart from her for ever. 
 
 But let me return to my narrative. 
 
 From my admiration of Lady Hungerford, as well as the encou- 
 ragement she gave me, it may be supposed that. I again presented 
 myself at her door, and I was again admitted into that temple of 
 elegance — the boudoir where she passed her mornings. 
 
 She was gracious as ever, and asked me how I got on in the 
 science of fashion, for science she termed it. 
 
 " I believe," said she, " there is no taking a degree in it at Ox- 
 ford, nor even any professors of it to have recourse to on an emer- 
 gency ?" 
 
 " That I can answer for to my certain knowledge,' 1 replied I. 
 
 " After all, then," continued she, "I believe what I have heard, 
 that London, as it is the largest, is also the best university. We have 
 indeed many professors of this science here, though with very dif- 
 ferent qualifications." 
 
 "It is this difference," answered I, "in those who profess to 
 have the same knowledge and the same reputation in the science, 
 which puzzles me 5 and this it is, upon which, under your lady- 
 ship's auspices, I so wish to be enlightened. I see a number of hu- 
 man beings divided into different circles, and by no means shewing 
 the same character or manners 5 not even of the same rank or con- 
 dition, fortune or talents 5 and yet all calling themselves, or claim- 
 ing to be called, the fashionable world. Are they all entitled to this 
 privilege, or only a few? and if not all, how are we to distinguish 
 the genuine and original from the counterfeit and the copyists? " 
 
 "You have advanced pretty far," said Lady Hungerford, "in 
 having already found out that there is this distinction. It is by no 
 means every one that has that tact." 
 
 46 It is important, however," said I, " because, having no preten- 
 sion myself, but seeking a proper model for imitation, I may be 
 misled by false colours, and instead of being well-bred, may turn 
 out to be ridiculous." 
 
 "Nothing more true," said Lady Hungerford, "if you were 
 without the tact I have mentioned, and which I believe you to pos- 
 sess — the tact to discover the real tournure from the false. For 
 tournure, after all, is perhaps the appropriate word, far more de- 
 finite in its signification than fashion itself, so generally used, and 
 become so common, that it is now almost confounded with its op- 
 posite — vulgarity." 
 
 1 thanked her for this new light as lo terms, and hoped it would 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 57 
 
 lead to farther acquisitions in what she had so properly called the 
 science. 
 
 I was thus proceeding with apologies, when she stopt me, as she 
 had once before. 
 
 " No apologies, if you please; I have told Lord Castlelon that I 
 would take you as a pupil, and I will even produce you when you 
 feel bold enough to wish it. In short, exclusive of Lord Caslleton's 
 interest about you, there is something in you that pleases me ; and 
 as he has commended you to my instructions, in order to obtain 
 the only thing you say you want, this tournure, this ton de la 
 parfaitement bonne compagnie, I have given you leave to culti- 
 vate rne, and you shall study my acquaintance, which will, perhaps, 
 enlighten and initiate you into what you, who are a philosopher, 
 will no doubt call the philosophy of fashion, better than all direct 
 lectures or your own speculations." 
 
 I thanked her, as became me, and said, with a low bow, that in 
 such a school, and with such a sincere admiration for my precep- 
 tress, I was not without hopes that I should succeed. 
 
 "Very good," said she, " your bow and your gratitude are par- 
 ticularly graceful, and in a tete a tete, such as this, I will not 
 blame you for a few compliments to my ladyship's abilities \ but if 
 your wish be to acquire the real tournure we talk of, and which 
 alone can be denominated real fashion, I must caution you to be 
 as sparing as possible of direct compliments, and particularly the 
 repetition, or, if possible, the mention of the hackneyed title of 
 ladyship. It would defeat your pretensions in a moment. " 
 
 I thought this odd. "What," said I, " may I not express the 
 approbation, or admiration, or shew the respect I feel, if I am 
 sincere? " 
 
 "Nothing so dangerous," replied she. " If ever you shew the 
 least dependence upon another for any thing which such compli- 
 ments imply, you are gone. And as for the perpetual recourse to 
 one's title, far from evincing the politeness aimed at, it will rank 
 you with menials. No one will look upon you except as an object 
 of compassion, and you will be far, very far, from that admission 
 of perfect equality, for which all persons of true fashion give one 
 another credit. You may be guilty indeed of a little flattery now and 
 then, but it must be well wrapt up, and rather by innuendo than 
 staringly obvious." 
 
 Here she laughed at her own learned mode of treating the sub- 
 ject; which, however, she said was important enough to justify it; 
 to which I agreed, and promised never to let approbation, or res- 
 pect, for any body, or any thing, again dishonour my pretensions. 
 But as to ever understanding the arcana of what did or did not con- 
 stitute fashion, I owned I despaired. 
 
 " At Oxford, in your cloister, and among pedants who know 
 
58 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 nothing of courts, but their quadrangles, I could believe this," said 
 Lady Hungerford. " But here, in the very midst of nous autres, 
 as we are called- " 
 
 " Ah ! those happy ' nous autres," " I cried. " Though I see and 
 feel all their superiority, I know not what precise qualification it is 
 thai gives them their claims to that mysterious appellation. For I 
 see people possessing it as a title of the first consequence, who arc 
 yet of not much consequence themselves, nay, some of them of no 
 consequence at all, but really in downright poverty * while others, 
 rolling in riches, toil often in quest of it in vain. Now, I should 
 have thought that riches, at least, which command every thing 
 else, might command this also." 
 
 " Riches," replied Lady Hungerford, rather contemptuously, 
 " are the last things which can confer it upon any one not fitted for 
 it. It cannot be bought with money, and you might as well sup- 
 pose a Dutch skipper, refined, as Congreve says, from a whale 
 fishery, could have sculptured the Venus de Medicis, as that a man 
 on account of his wealth could pass muster as a man of fashion." 
 
 " But riches would surely go a good way towards it," observed I. 
 
 " Of themselves, not a step," said she 5 " nay, in many instances 
 they would be much in the way, by enabling people to make them- 
 selves ridiculous, which persons of fashion never are. I allow, how- 
 ever, they are sometimes very convenient, so as occasionally to 
 make their possessors tolerated, but no more, and only on parti- 
 cular occasions. " 
 
 "Well, but," said I, "it was but yesterday that I dined with 
 Mr. Grogram, the great scrivener, who asked me, because I was 
 Lord Castlelon's secretary, to meet Lord Rufus Urban. Lord Rufus 
 has this tournure, I suppose?" 
 
 " Nobody more of it j scarcely any one so much. But what then V 
 
 " Why, Mr. Grogram is the most vulgar of mankind— vulgar in 
 mind, in person, in manners, conversation, and dress; and yet 
 Lord Rufus seemed quite at home with him 5 nay, enjoyed his din- 
 ner, pronounced the claret excellent, and in the evening played 
 several rubbers at whist ; though, even to me, Mr. Grogram and all 
 his company were of the very coarsest tone." 
 
 Lady Hungerford smiled, and said— "You will soon find this 
 out. As high men in rank and breeding as Lord Rufus, will some- 
 limes, nay, not unfrequently, lay aside their refinement for (he sake 
 of a very good dinner, which I suppose Mr. Grogram gave." 
 
 " The best possible," said I, " as to cookery 5 indeed the cooks 
 and most of the materiel were from Paris." 
 
 "Just so; and as to the whist, pray did Mr. Grogram win or 
 lose?" 
 
 " 0 ! lost considerably, and well he might, for he cannot play aS 
 all — nay, even revoked," 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 59 
 
 " Perhaps on purpose,' 1 said Lady Hungerford. " AH dans les 
 regies, But these are mysteries which cannot yet be explained to 
 you 5 you will know them in time. Meanwhile should Mr. Grogram 
 attempt to get into White's, his low birth, and lower manners, 
 would for ever defeat such an attempt, and, notwithslanding their 
 seeming intimacy, Lord Rufus would be the first to blackball him." 
 
 "What an advantage then is birth, 1 ' said I, thinking I had now 
 discovered one at least of the ingredients of fashion. 
 
 "Be not misled by that supposition, " replied my instructress: 
 " recollect Pope : — 
 
 " What will ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ? 
 Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.' 
 
 "So it is with real fashion. All the birth in the world will not 
 necessarily give that cool self-possession, that air of internal supe- 
 riority to all awkward feelings, or what Chesterfield calls that intre- 
 pidity of assurance, which genuine fashion confers. Why the Du- 
 chess of— herself, though full of humble piety, and an angel 
 
 in goodness, handsome withal, as well as among the highest of the 
 high born, is not considered as ton." 
 
 Beat out of this, I tried talents and genius, and mentioned one or 
 two persons eminent in literature, and. the arts, whom I had already 
 seen in fashionable parlies, both at dinners and assemblies. 
 
 Lady Hungerford would not admit even this as a passport. 
 
 "Men of genius certainly, and very respectable people," said 
 she 5 " and if their object is to be enrolled in the legitimate ranks of 
 real high life, deserving a better fate ; for they are, for the most 
 part, mere lions, who have their day, and, unless for something 
 more than their literature, will be soon forgotten in their persons, 
 though their works may survive. With this class of persons a single 
 piece of awkwardness, an exhibition of mauvaise honte (to which 
 most of them, from want of breeding, are liable) 5 even an ill-cut 
 coal 5 in short, the least vulgarity impedes their advance, if it do 
 not absolutely annihilate them." 
 
 I now felt repulsed right and left, and asked if personal beauty, 
 manners, grace, and accomplishments, would not avail? 
 
 " Manners," said Lady Hungerford, " will undoubtedly do much, 
 combined with other requisites; but even they, not of themselves 
 alone. The manners of a man utterly of no consequence, will be 
 of themselves worse than of no consequence, for they may seem to 
 claim a distinction not legitimate. Beauty may create admiration 
 with the men, and envy with the women, but will not confer the 
 privileges of noblesse we speak of. Miss Pidcock was beautiful as 
 a Houri, and as such was intended to acquire fashion herself, and 
 bestow it upon her sisters. But her name was against her 5 she was 
 produced by a vulgar aunt 5 Lord Petronius, the arbiter elegan- 
 
60 DE CLIFFORD^ 
 
 tiarum for the time being, pronounced her a milk-maid, and Ihere 
 was an end of her." 
 
 " Perhaps," said I, "she was not graceful, and I own all the 
 beauty in the world, without grace, could never win me." 
 
 " Winning" replied my shrewd patroness, good-naturedly 
 laughing, "is not the question, but whether grace, even the most 
 exquisite, will alone raise a person into fashion who has no other 
 pretension to it Not only it will not (for how many very graceful 
 persons do we not see negiecled though looked at), and, on the other 
 hand, how many personifications of clumsiness (large limbs, high 
 shoulders, and enormous embonpoint), do we not behold in our best 
 drawing rooms? What exhibilions are there also of scraggy, flat, 
 ill-formed machines, inrolled in, and constituting what is called, 
 the very best company ! These you will meet not only in W\Qcreme, 
 but in the creme de la creme, as it has been called, of high sociely." 
 
 "Good heavens!'"' cried I, astonished at these difficulties, "if 
 all these qualifications fail, what will succeed?" 
 
 "Nothing," answered the lady, "but, in addition to the quali- 
 fications we have been canvassing, that indescribable something 
 which we know not what to call, though we daily and hourly see, 
 and fall down before, and worship it the moment it appears, and 
 yet can never exactly say why. Perhaps Hannah More characte- 
 rized it, when she wrote the line, 
 
 ' All Levison's sweetness, and all Beaufort's grace.' 
 
 But even this grace and sweelness must be coupled with Levison 
 and Beaufort's rank, blood, and connexions, before it can succeed. 
 Perhaps it is a gift from nature, that rich gift to the Seymours, the 
 Somersets, the Filzroys, or the Gowers, which a nabob, and a 
 nabob's wife, would give half India to be able to acquire. But 
 still we know not in language to describe it, and hence, I said, it 
 was indescribable." 
 
 " Surely," said 1, struck with this ebullition, " if you can so 
 well exemplify this something, so powerful as well as desirable, 
 though it have no name, it cannot be so indescribable as you have 
 called it. One who understands so well what il is not, must know 
 what it is, and therefore can tell at least of what it is composed." 
 
 "No!" answered the lady again; "for its ingredients are as 
 heterogeneous as numerous •, by no means producing the same ef- 
 fect upon all persons, nor always upon the same person. They 
 cannot, therefore, be classed, or depended upon. They may be 
 efficient in one, inefficient in another; attract here, repel there; 
 conciliate, or affront • be admired, or hated -according as a com- 
 bination of fortunate or untoward events may prevail among dif- 
 ferent parties. 
 
 " One reason for this may be, that good breeding may be of two 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 61 
 
 sorts— one original, theolher imilaSive. Hence the manners of the 
 old nobility are rarely caught by new men, from the consciousness 
 of superiority in the former, and of inferiority in the latter, imbibed 
 from their cradles. Much depends also upon convention, a know- 
 ledge of which, and strict observance of its laws, are absolutely ne- 
 cessary." 
 
 u Would that I could obtain this knowledge," said I. 
 
 44 What you may do when you have been some time at Court, I 
 know not," returned Lady Hungerford. 44 At present you have loo 
 much simplicity, and are too natural, to take a degree in fashion. 
 If you saw a beautiful woman, you would stare at her ■ if she was 
 your mistress, you would shew pleasure 5 if the house was on fire, 
 you would shew fear." 
 
 64 And good cause too," said I. 
 
 " Aye ; there it is," observed my preceptress, 44 I said you were 
 too natural. I am afraid you will never do, and I shall report you 
 to Lord Caslleton accordingly." 
 
 Thus disported this lively lady on a subject which had often 
 puzzled me, and wiser heads than mine, but which she seemed to 
 have considered as philosophically as playfully. 
 
 The conference was now about to end 5 bu? of a sudden it oc- 
 curred to me that we had not touched upon a very important part 
 of the subject, and that it was quite as necessary for one studying 
 les usages to know the legitimate meaning of the opposite to 
 fashion, as of fashion itself. 
 
 I propounded this, and asked, though we might not be able 
 exactly to tell in what fashion consisted, whether it might not assist 
 the inquiry to define its opposite — vulgarity. 
 
 u Scientifically put," said she. "I find you have not been at Oxford 
 for nothing. In truth, the question is most apposite to that we have 
 been treating ; certainly, much connected with it ; and it seems to 
 me that it is not quite so difficult ; for though we cannot easily 
 manage to say more than what fashion is not, we can pretty well 
 tell what vulgarity is." 
 
 44 This is what I most devoutly wish to understand," said I, 
 44 though you will pardon me if I venture to doubt your powers of 
 instruction here, from the impossibility of your knowing any thing 
 of such a subject." 
 
 44 A very well-intended compliment," observed the lady ; 44 I see 
 you have already endeavoured to profit by one of my precepts, and, 
 as I told you to do, have tried at least to wrap it well up. After all, 
 perhaps, I may have hopes of you. And yet you are still most un- 
 learned in the matter 5 for don't you see that nous autres are not 
 merely the best, but the exclusive judges of what does not belong 
 to us, by being the sole arbiters of what does. Ask a vulgar (the 
 very vulgarest man), what is vulgarity — he will take care to tell 
 
62 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 you it cannot be himself. Those only can know it — or, at least, 
 those know it best — who are farthest removed from it 5 — so that 
 after all, what you intended is the reverse of a compliment. I 
 feel for your mistake." 
 
 What she really felt I don't exactly know, but, for myself, I felt 
 this was a palpable hit, and in some confusion owned it. 
 
 " Well," said she, " you will do better next time \ only take no- 
 lice that this is another proof of the danger of attempting compli- 
 ments. And now for our subject, upon which, however, as we have 
 settled that we can tell what vulgarity is, we shall not have so much 
 trouble in determining what it is not. But, may I ask what you say 
 it is.? That is, who are, in your opinion, the vulgar? " 
 
 44 To answer generally," said I, " I suppose the lower orders ; 
 the common people, called vulgus, whence the word ; and hence 
 what the common people generally are, the uneducated — the gens 
 de la halle — the mob." 
 
 "In my view of the question," answered Lady Hungerford, 
 44 this definition will not do; though, as a generic explanation, it 
 is, I suppose, accurate. But although if vulgus (which I know is 
 translated by you scholars, common people) stands for vulgar, 
 vulgar and the common people must be the same ; still it will not, 
 as Ifeelit, mean those hateful persons who really form the vulgar; 
 for, in my sense of vulgarity, it is always taken with an adverse 
 meaning ; and in that bad sense the common people are not 
 identified with it, for they are neither exclusively nor necessarily 
 disgusting." 
 
 44 But being, as you allow, the vulgar, is not that a paradox?" 
 asked I. 
 
 44 You think so, I see ; and I will therefore endeavour to explain 
 myself; for I am clear that to be one of the common people does 
 not necessarily carry along with it that qffensweness which always 
 so shocks us, and which is by no means confined to the lower 
 orders, merely as such; neither, as such, does it necessarily 
 belong to them, though generically (and only generically) the name 
 implies it." 
 
 44 1 see your ladyship," said I, 44 is determined to treat this deep 
 subject as it deserves, most philosophically and most profoundly. I 
 assure you I am quite alive to the ingenuity of this distinction." 
 
 44 All that I mean," continued the lady, "is that we are not 
 shocked with what only appears in its natural colours, and pursues 
 its natural course, remaining always in its appropriate place. It 
 is when, without necessity, it leaves its proper place from choice, 
 and forces itself where it ought not to be, that it becomes disgust- 
 ing. Of this the fable of the ass who (respectable in his stable, but 
 jealous of the lap-dog) forced his way into the drawing-room, and 
 was punished for it, is an apt illustration. So we hale not a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 63 
 
 scavenger's or a market-woman's manners, while in their necessary 
 occupations, but if we copied them in our saloons, who could fail 
 to be shocked?" 
 
 "Nothing can be more correct," said I, admiring her precision, 
 and anxious to see how she would work out her inference. 
 
 "Well then," she observed, " the mere phrase, 4 the vulgar' — 
 meaning, in its general signification, only the most numerous pari 
 of the community — does not, of necessity, imply the same thing 
 as the relative term vulgarity, which always means something 
 revolting." 
 
 " Charmingly logical," I exclaimed, " and yet, I fear, the man- 
 ners of the lower orders have always in them something revolting." 
 
 " I have not found it so," replied she, mildly ; "provided they 
 do not seek to make themselves higher than they are ; then, indeed, 
 they become offensive, ridiculous, and disgusting, like Monsieur 
 l'ane in the fable I have just now quoted. When they do not do 
 this, but are content with their stations, they are too respectable to 
 excite any notion derogatory to that equality with us in the eye of 
 our common Creator, which the most spoilt child of dignity and 
 fashion, who ventures to think of what he is made of, must feel as 
 well as themselves." 
 
 I cannot say how I honoured my delightful preceptress for this 
 unaffected display of her just, as well as refined mind, especially 
 when she went on— 
 
 "From theirgreater numbers, it is true, the common people, being 
 the poor classes, the chief of their time must be taken up in endeavour- 
 ing to live. They cannot have the same facilities for education or 
 polish that belong to the rich. But on that very account, the want 
 of them cannot be attributed to them as a crime, or even a fault. 
 We allow for the necessity of the case ; we expect what we find ; 
 and we do not feel disappointed or disgusted when we find it. Who 
 is shocked to see a beggar ill-clothed 5 or even a chimney-sweeper 
 begrimed with soot \ or the manners of servants while in the servants' 
 hall ? But if masters, having the power of choice, prefer dirt to 
 cleanliness, or ape their servants' manners, then indeed we sicken, 
 and avoid them as vulgar, in the hateful sense of the term." 
 
 "Perfectly clear," said I, delighted to see such an apologist for 
 the many in such an ornament of the few. 
 
 " It follows, then," continued she, " that what you denominate 
 vulgar, is not what I mean when I say I hale vulgarity." 
 
 " I am quite convinced," observed I ; " though I would beg the 
 favour, that what you have said about choice might be a little more 
 explained." 
 
 " What I mean," said Lady Hungerford, " is when a person has 
 a power to prefer one set of habits to another, and is not confined 
 by his lot to the particular set he has chosen, yet chooses (as many 
 
64 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 do) to degrade himself by adopting the manners, and sometimes 
 even the appearance, of those below him. To be dirty, whether in 
 person or mind, is vulgar • but only if you have a choice in it, that 
 is, if you have the power to be otherwise if you please, and refuse 
 to be so. If forced to it from poverty, and not inclined to it from 
 disposition, I should say you were only to be pitied, not that you 
 were vulgar. If a duke had the taste to dress, and live, and haunt 
 pot-houses, like a hackney-coachman, I should say he was vulgar •, 
 not so the hackney-coachman himself." 
 
 " Clear as day," exclaimed I, and again I could not help admir- 
 ing the sense and tact of this engaging as well as superior woman. 
 
 " The result is," continued she, " that vulgarity is what I have 
 called it, a relative not an abstract term. It by no means belongs 
 exclusively to the lower orders, or even to particular classes, except 
 by comparison. It is rather the characteristic of individuals, and 
 as such may belong to the high as well as the low 5 and hence the 
 well-known phrase of < the great vulgar as on the other hand we 
 often think particular persons not eminent for their condition, or 
 who have had little instruction, to be naturally well-bred." 
 
 Here Lady Hungerford ceased \ and though I felt all the force 
 and clearness of these observations, I was so unwilling to lose the 
 charm of her voice and manner in recommending them, that I 
 would not abandon the argument 5 but while I allowed the accuracy 
 of this account of vulgarity, asked what we were to say to the dis- 
 dain with which a duchess will sometimes treat the wife of a mer- 
 chant, however rich, or a lawyer, however learned, or a divine, 
 even though a bishop? 
 
 "Are you quite sure you are just to the duchess in this?" 
 returned the lady. " No duchess if really well-bred (which we are 
 to suppose her), would ever shew disdain to any one who did not 
 challenge it by some impropriety of her own. If therefore there is 
 disdain, it is because the object of it would be avoided for something 
 wrong, and perhaps innately and individually vulgar, even if she 
 were a duchess herself." 
 
 " What this innate vulgarity is," observed I, n whether in high 
 or low, is what I shall delight to learn from one who is so good a 
 judge." 
 
 "Surely it is not difficult," said Lady Hungerford. "For if 
 vulgarity is so offensive as to be haled and banished from our circles, 
 it is because a really natural born vulgar is so faulty a character. 
 He respects or rather loves no one but himself. He certainly shews 
 no respect to others, but is a mere selfish, isolated sensualist 5 a sort 
 of moral sloth in his tree, who, studying only his own comfort or 
 his own interest, cares not how much he shocks the feelings or 
 invades the convenience of another. Hence, common civility and 
 the bienseances are loo much trouble for him, and he neglects 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 65 
 
 them in his manners, in his language, and even in his thoughts. 
 Hence, he is coarse, boisterous, impudent, and insulting ; indelicate 
 in his ideas and in his language. If he argue with you, he is a 
 bear ; and if he wishes to pay court, a monkey. He is always self- 
 sufficient, consults nobody's feelings, laughs at everybody's sen- 
 sibilities, and, in short, when under no restraint, is often a brute." 
 
 To this just as well as eloquent account of the really vulgar man, 
 I had nothing to oppose 5 but, to draw her out still further (for her 
 impressiveness only added to her beauty), I asked why a mere dif- 
 ference of appearance, such as we call uncouthness, should be 
 deemed, as it generally is, vulgarity? 
 
 ' 'Are you quite right in that opinion ?" asked she. " Is uncouth- 
 ness necessarily vulgar? Is it more than something strange or 
 unusual in dress or manners (I do not mean morals), to which we 
 are not accustomed? If this be so, should Queen Elizabeth herself 
 appear again in her ruff and farthingale, she would be the height of 
 uncouthness, but she would not be vulgar." 
 
 u Not vulgar, possibly," returned I, "but surely ridiculous, which 
 is perhaps akin to it." 
 
 " Not," replied the lady (looking much in earnest ), " if it pro- 
 ceeded not from some defect of character. For if being merely in- 
 nocently ridiculous made us vulgar, I don't know what would be- 
 come of ' nousautres." No 5 1 still say that the vulgarity which we 
 so detest, and of which alone we are talking, must take its rise from 
 something unsound in the mind or heart; something which, as it 
 certainly may be found among the upper ranks, so the lower may 
 as certainly be exempt from it." 
 
 " I fear to ask," said I, " for the proofs of this among the up- 
 per ranks." 
 
 " Why, there is always vulgarity, at least of mind," answered 
 Lady Hungerford, " where there is silly affectation, low-though ted 
 pride (as of purse or other prosperity) towards our inferiors, or 
 envy, hatred, and malice towards our superiors ; or, what is worse, 
 a despicable attempt, by flattery or parasitical attentions, to obtain 
 their notice, or insinuate ourselves into their acquaintance. Such 
 is the case of all parvenus, who have not sense or pride of mind 
 enough to use their good fortune properly, but barter the diamond 
 of their independence for the Bristol stone of vanity. As nothing is 
 so soon seen through by people of real fashion, so nothing is so 
 much ridiculed or contemned." 
 
 Having said this, she added with a good-humoured smile, " This 
 I think is enough for to-day's lesson, so now we will break up 
 school, and you may go play." 
 
 I heard all this with regret, for I was absolutely charmed; but 
 11. 5 
 
60 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 seeing she was engaged, I took my leave with all necessary acknow- 
 ledgments. 
 
 Certainly there is no pleasure more gratifying than to listen to 
 refined sense, falling from the lips of a refined and beautiful woman. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF MANKIND WHICH BEING IN OFFICE PRODUCES, AND OF THE 
 HAPPINESS OF COURTS AND COURTIERS, IN THE OPINION OF A PHILOSOPHIC MINISTER. 
 
 The art of the court, 
 As hard to leave as keep ; whose top to climb 
 Is certain falling; or so slippery, that 
 The fear's as bad as falling. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Cymbeline. 
 
 While I was thus progressing in the knowledge of high life, un- 
 der the auspices of this charming lady, who by opening her evening 
 saloon to me added practical lessons to theory, I found I was not 
 behindhand in what was still more important, my official business. 
 The ability of Lord Castleton tilled me with respect, while his kind 
 as well as polished manners would have won me to him, had he 
 been, what he was not, one of those every day ministers who get into 
 office without knowing how; some as Corinthian capitals, in the 
 shape of high titles ; some from a reputation, nobody knows by what 
 means acquired, and forfeited as soon as brought to the test. These 
 are often continued in place because they happen to be there ; and 
 sometimes are kept in merely to keep others out. The presiding 
 geniuses, such a Lord Castleton, were few. They did all the work, 
 and directed affairs, while the rest pocketed their salaries, content 
 to do what they were bid, and be well paid for doing so. 
 
 My place in Lord Castleton's estimation having become known, 
 procured me many introductions and acquaintances $ how many 
 friends I know not, for that test of friendship, the vacating of office, 
 had not occurred, so I was sought after, courted, and feted, by men 
 and women of all ranks— the men, for supposed patronage; the 
 women, to frank their gowns and muffs through the post-office and 
 customs. 
 
 My power was supposed both great and inexhaustible. Everybody 
 knew that Lord Castleton governed the realm, and thought I had 
 at least a jackal's share with him. If I was seen, as was sometimes 
 the case, going with him in his chariot to his villa at Roehampton, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 67 
 
 though our conversation was of the lightest kind, I was set down as 
 depositary of all the secrets of Europe. It reminded me of Swift's 
 intercourse with Lord Oxford 
 
 " When what's o'clock? and how's the wind? 
 Whose coach is that we left behind ? 
 And all such tattle, entertains 
 My lord and me as far as Staines, 
 And though what passes inter nos 
 Might be proclaim'd at Charing Cross, 
 And though I solemnly declare 
 I know no more than my lord-mayor, 
 They stand amaz'd, and think me grown 
 The closest mortal ever known." 
 
 I was much amused, but sometimes teased and sometimes revolted, 
 by the consequences of this opinion, which, the more I sought to 
 refute it, the stronger it grew, and ofjen shewed itself in the shape 
 of offered bribes, more or less covered. One great lady, who had a 
 son to promote, sent me opera tickets for six months, till the place 
 she wanted was filled up, when the tickets came no more. A duke 
 always invited me to his battues, and sent me game besides, while 
 the lieutenancy of his county was vacant ; though not even Lord 
 Gastleton had any thing to do with it. He got it from other interest, 
 and from that instant no more invitations. 
 
 One of the highest of the female haute noblesse } who was courted, 
 like the sun by the Persians, for one genial ray, after I had been six 
 months installed with Lord Castleton most graciously admitted me 
 amongst her elect. I plumed myself upon it with Lady Hungerford. 
 She smiled mischievously, and said, "Don't be too sure 5 wait till 
 you or your patron is out of office." She was right. 
 
 A great colonist offered me one day twenty thousand acres of 
 unreclaimed land, adding, if I did not like to turn settler myself, 
 they might be sold to advantage. A West-India house sent me turtles 5 
 an East-India, a pipe of madeira; all which I returned, and made 
 them enemies instead of friends. 
 
 In a smaller way, I was invited to more dinners in one year than 
 I could eat in ten. 
 
 AH this I communicated to Lord Castleton, who enjoyed it himself, 
 and said it would be "nuts" for Folhergili ; to whom, to Manners, 
 and my family, I gave a regular account of my progress, and was 
 pleased with the pleasure which my brothers expressed at t' young 
 doctor's success. 
 
 One other consequence of this success was not unamusing. Several 
 men whom I had known by sight at Oxford, in the walks and coffee- 
 houses, to some of whom I had had slight introductions, but which 
 they did their utmost to forget, were now of a sudden visited wilh a 
 
68 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 most accurate power of memory, and at Lord Castleton's table, or 
 evening parties, and even, some of them, at the Opera and St. 
 James's, reminded me cordially of our former acquaintance, 
 observing, often, that one great advantage of going to college was 
 the making acquaintance with those whom they were afterwards to 
 meet in the world. But vogue la galere, as the proverb says, and 
 let us not be over nice as to the means. 
 
 From what I have related, a prospect which I had not exactly 
 contemplated opened wide before me, in the knowledge of mankind 
 which my situation promised to me. Other professions are in this 
 respect confined chiefly to an intercourse with their own class : 
 merchants with merchants, soldiers with soldiers, scholars with 
 scholars, and even ministers with ministers. These last are too great, 
 or too occupied with great affairs, to see the world in all its phases. 
 It is their secretaries and confidants on whom the preliminary matters 
 devolve without disguise, or. with less of it; who hear and see 
 characters, and examine cases, in more nakedness than their 
 principals. 
 
 For example, I had not been a week installed, before a very po- 
 pular member for a very populous place, where the election was 
 always popular, came to me, and very frankly told me he would 
 save me all the trouble he could; for that though, from the nature 
 of his constituency, he should have to pester me with applications 
 for Jack, Tom, and Harry, yet unless he marked specialupon them, 
 I need not attend to them, still less need I trouble Lord Castle ton 5 
 — all he wanted being the power of honestly assuring his consti- 
 tuents that he had made application for them ! 
 This was a curious instance of what is called cheating the devil. 
 I was myself, however, a little put to it, as to the portion of honesty 
 I was expected to infuse into the civility necessary to be shewn to 
 my numerous applicants. To hear or read their cases was half my 
 day's work, and, I own, to escape the reproach of insincerity was 
 the most difficult part of my position. I wrote to Manners about 
 this, and in answer, he told me I could not do belter than consult 
 Lord Castleton himself, who was always pleased with ingenuousness. 
 
 I did so, and laid before him the difficulties which my inexperience 
 in a political office daily occasioned. He was amused with many 
 cases I described to him, and told me to expect many more. "As 
 for the honesty," observed he, " which you tell me is in such danger, 
 all I can tell you is, preserve it, coute que coiXte" 
 
 I honoured him for this reply, to which he added a recom- 
 mendation of a passage in one of Chesterfield's letters, which he 
 said was a sort of breviary for men in office, though he feared, like 
 other breviaries, too often neglected. 
 
 "The qualifications in the practical part of business are, anab- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 69 
 
 solule command of temper 5 patience to hear frivolous, impertinent, 
 and unreasonable applications 5 with address enough to refuse, 
 without offending, or, by your manner of granting, to double the 
 obligation ; dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling 
 a lie: 1 
 
 " Is not this," said I, somewhat startled, " contradicting the ex- 
 cellent maxim of Cicero, that truth means, not only the not telling 
 what is false, but the not concealing what is true 1 ?" 
 
 " Very like a good scholar of Fothergill, ,, replied Lord Castle- 
 ton 5 " but you are to mark that this applies only to history, and to 
 those cases where to reveal a fact is a duty, not where to ask a 
 thing may be an impertinence. As there can be no merit in blunl- 
 ness, so there can be no harm in civility." 
 
 He then told me a bon mot of the king in regard to one of his 
 colleagues, who was what is called a rough diamond, and, from 
 the effect of his very honesty, the most unpopular of the cabinet. 
 Lord Caslleton, who respected him, said one day to the king (who 
 had himself experienced his roughness ), that it was a pity 5 for that 
 if he were only commonly civil, his virtue was such, that he might 
 do any thing : u Yes," answered the king, " or if only commonly 
 
 WTZCiVil." 
 
 One of the first things that struck me was, the nature and despo- 
 tism of party. People who are only public men while they are read- 
 ing the papers, or conversing sheerly upon measures as they appear 
 to the world, have no sort of notion of the influence of this potent 
 spell, which, like the spell of enchanters, controls nature itself. I 
 own, with all my knowledge of history, I was one of these ignora- 
 muses, and thought that the being a public man did not preclude 
 a person from calling black, black, and white, white. I found I 
 was mistaken, and that neither great virtue nor great fortune could 
 exempt a man enrolled in party, any more than if he were enrolled 
 in the army, from thinking, speaking, and looking as his command- 
 ing officers ordered him. 
 
 It was an obstinacy in a contrary opinion that drove Manners out 
 of Parliament, for in this he was " ortus a quercu, non a salice" 
 
 My attention was first called to this, by a sort of dispute upon it, 
 at Lord Castleton's table. 
 
 "With my castle in the north, and 15,000Z. a-year, who shall 
 dare," said a young Hotspur, animating in the argument, " to pre- 
 scribe how I shall vote. What can I care for ambition ?" 
 
 " More perhaps than you are aware of," said an old politician, 
 to whom he was addressing himself; "go, live a common-place 
 life at your fine castle, and see what will come of it. See nobody 
 
 " Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeal." 
 
70 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 but the little people of the neigbourhood, grow as rusty as they, 
 and be ready to give your ears, though in vain, for such company 
 as this. Depend upon it you will soon wish yourself back again/' 
 "But why may I not be, what a very virtuous nobleman was 
 said to be, in his epitaph ? — 
 
 ' Courted by all parties, 
 Enlisted in none '.' " 
 
 " Very good," said his cool Nestor ■ " and if you enlist in none, 
 you will be neglected by all." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because, great and wise as you may think yourself, and vir- 
 tuous as you may intend to be, you will pass your life among the 
 common herd, without power, and, therefore, without conse- 
 quence." 
 
 Hotspur bit his lips, and said, rather than that should be, he 
 would go back to Northumberland. 
 
 " And be the melancholy lord of it, as he is called in the play %" 
 said his antagonist. 
 
 The best of it was, that Hotspur, having actually fled to his north 
 em fastness, to indulge his virtuous indignation, was so sickened 
 with spleen, caused by inaction, that, unable to persuade himself, 
 as at first he had resolved, to vacate his seat, he returned to St. 
 Stephen's, and became ever after one of the hottest party men that 
 ever blew the political trumpet. 
 
 Observations on these scenes and characters formed an inexhaus- 
 tible source of both amusement and improvement, particularly 
 when, after a few months, I no longer fell a fresh-man in London 5 
 and their effect upon me formed sometimes a diverting speculation 
 for Lord Castleton himself, who said I was the most admirable 
 touchstone, from being totally unsophisticated, that since the days 
 of Fothergill he had ever met with. He was, indeed, particularly 
 interested in observing how by degrees the rust of my Oxford gown, 
 as he called it, wore off, and how well I took to the training both 
 of Lady Hungerford's saloon and of our own official commerce 
 with men. 
 
 In the latter I grew so thoroughly imbued, that one would sup- 
 pose I had been bred to it all my life. The very air of Downing- 
 street, as it was different to all other atmospheres, so it seemed 
 more wholesome and necessary to those who breathed it 5 so that 
 I was not at all surprised that they who, from any accident, or revo- 
 lution in politics, were deprived of it, never found themselves well 
 
 ' Henry, third Lord Lonsdale. 
 
 3 Saw you the melancholy Lord Northumberland ?-~Richard III, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 71 
 
 afterwards. The effect, also, of this atmosphere was always visible 
 in the countenance and manner of those who dwelt in it. It followed 
 them into all other places ; to court especially, and the houses of 
 Parliament 5 so that you might easily perceive in what quarter oS 
 the town they dwelt, by their complacency 5 while those who never 
 had been there, but particularly if they had been and were expelled, 
 shewed all the symptoms of a change for the worse. 
 
 And yet, for all this, I cannot say, from my experience, that these 
 minions of office or court favour were positively or abstractedly 
 happy \ and so I told my patron, who often amused himself with 
 what he called my philosophy on these subjects, the offspring, he 
 said, of my intimacy with Fothergill and Manners. 
 
 One part indeed, and that not a small one, of the pleasure I took 
 in my situation, was the frank communication of himself often made 
 by this excellent, and, though a minister, this guileless man, in 
 moments when it seemed a relief to him to unbend with a person 
 he could confide in. 
 
 Finding him one morning reading Boyle on " Things above 
 Reason," instead of official papers, and very philosophically in- 
 clined, I propounded my doubts to him on the happiness of courtiers, 
 
 "You are right," he said. " There is a great difference between 
 positive happiness, and the absence of its contrary. Office and 
 power are indeed notorious for their accompanying cares, and only 
 two things can compensate to a man who dedicates himself to them, 
 for the sacrifice he makes of his independence. For who the deuce, 
 for the rewards of a few hundreds a-year, which will not pay for 
 his dinners or court suits, would sacrifice his days and nights, to 
 be abused and vilified into the bargain, by at least one half of those 
 whom he is endeavouring to serve? 
 
 "How often in the recess of my closet, and the silence of the 
 night, after a hard-fought day, and I had been forced to listen to 
 impertinencies which, as a public man, you must submit to, but 
 which no private man would bear, have I pondered those lines of 
 Cowper, which so well describe what we are discussing : — 
 
 ' To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood, 
 E'en when he labours for his country's good ; 
 To see a band call'd patriot, for no cause, 
 But that they catch at popular applause, 
 Careless of all the anxiety he feels, 
 Hook disappointment on the public wheels : 
 With all their flippant fluency of tongue, 
 
 Most confident, when palpably most wrong; \ « 
 
 If this be kingly, then farewell for me 
 
 All kingship, and may I be poor and free.' " 
 
 I admired both the sentiment in these lines, and the feeling 
 
72 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 manner of Lord Castleton's reciting them ; but could not help ask- 
 ing to know what were the two things which bore a minister up so 
 as to overcome such disgusts. 
 
 66 They are," answered he, " either a sincere and disinterested 
 wish to serve the state, or an ambition (the reverse of disinterested) 
 to serve one's self. To this indeed, where the disposition is not 
 over sweet, you may add a third — that of destroying your rivals. 
 The latter may excite, but it will certainly not make you happy ; 
 and, steeped as I may be supposed to be in the love of power, one 
 hour of Manners's Grange, in positive satisfaction, is worth a year 
 of our fancied enjoyments." 
 
 Finding him thus disposed to unbend upon a subject so delicate, 
 I ventured to ask why, if such were his feelings, he persisted in a 
 pursuit he found so little happy. 
 
 " An important question," said he, " difficult to answer, and I 
 believe I must refer you to La Bruyere to solve it. ' La cour ne 
 rend pas heureux, mais empeche de Vetre ailleurs.' I believe 
 that is the real secret ; and if I did not think so, I would be off to 
 Castleton to-morrow." 
 
 He said this with so resolute an air that I began to fear something 
 had gone wrong 5 and when I saw how intent he seemed on Boyle, 
 I trembled not a little with apprehension for my own position, with 
 which I by no means had found myself disposed to quarrel. I was 
 relieved, however, by my patron's adding, that, although the many 
 factions he had to encounter gave him much trouble, yet as long as 
 they were palpably factions, and not a liberal and virtuous opposi- 
 tion to his measures, he felt that both duty and honour forbade him 
 to crown such unpatriotic conduct with success, by retiring from 
 fear, or perhaps in a pet. 
 
 / highly approved these sentiments. 
 
 " To return, however, to our point," said he, " you young as- 
 pirants would do well not to let yourselves be dazzled with the out- 
 side of a court, or with the outside of any thing, public or private. 
 For many an aching, as well as a mean heart, 6 lurks beneath a star.' 
 By the way," proceeded he, taking up a brochure which had just 
 been sent him, " here is the best comment made to my hand on this 
 last observation." 
 
 So saying, he made me read from a French memoir recently 
 published at Paris : — 
 
 u La Marquise de Pompadour n'etait pas heureuse. Que lui man- 
 quait-il done ? La paix de l'ame , premiere condition da bonheur. 
 Devoree de chagrins , excitant l'envie , profondement affligee du 
 malheur de vieillir ; honteuse , comme elle dit , d'avoir servi des 
 hommes mediocres qui n'ont su faire que des reverences et des 
 bassesses; adoree de rnille gens, aimee de personnel lasse et 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 73 
 
 meme detrompee de la faveur , elle demandait quelquefois a la for- 
 tune de Ten debarrasser \ et Tinstant d'apres elle revoquait un vceu 
 dont l'accomplissement l'eut desesperee 1 ." 
 
 " Now," added Lord Castleton, we have only, in this account, 
 to change a marquise for a marquis, and we have here a pretty good 
 picture of any courtier or minister of an ill-regulated ambition . Cer- 
 tainly the want of the paix de Vdme, premiere condition da bon- 
 heur, may attend my lord as well as my lady 5 certainly, also, if he 
 has not ( perhaps even if he has ) a philosophic mind, he may be de- 
 vore de chagrins, and, according to his character (though, thank 
 heaven, that is not my predicament ), may be prqfondement af- 
 flige du malheur de vieillir. It is very certain that he may have 
 promoted des hommes mediocres ( no reflection upon your excel- 
 lency ), and repented of it ; and too true, that he may be worshipped 
 by numbers, and beloved of none. Finally, let me wind up with the 
 falling Wolsey — 
 
 4 O ! how wretched 
 Is that poor man who hangs on princes' favours ! 
 There is between that smile we would aspire to, 
 That sweet aspect of prince* and our ruin, 
 More pangs and fears than wars or women have.' " 
 
 I was struck with the energy, denoting sincerity, with which he 
 uttered this, and waited silently, in the hope that he would continue, 
 which he presently did. 
 
 "Nobody," said he, " would believe me if I afTected to despise 
 political ambition 5 but this I am sure of, that one page of this book 
 ( pointing to the volume of Boyle) studied in the closet, with a heart 
 expanding to the bounties and wonders of the Creator there de- 
 scribed, makes all the glittering pageants of party success mean in 
 comparison." 
 
 The emphasis of his manner increased as he went on with this, 
 and I continued at first quite silent 5 pondering, in fact, these very 
 weighty considerations, and happy in being thought worthy of his 
 confidence in a matter of some delicacy, when treated by a minister. 
 
 At length I ventured to ask, whether these remarks were not ap- 
 plicable to the meridian of despotic countries, France or Germany, 
 rather than England. 
 
 " I have heard," said I, " that a minister out of office abroad is 
 what is called disgracie, that is, banni dans ses terres ; or per- 
 haps to Siberia 5 which they hold to be disgrace enough. But an Eng- 
 lish minister often triumphs in turning his back upon his power ; 
 at least, so he asserts." 
 
 " Do not believe him," said Lord Castleton, " even if he swore it. 
 
 ' Essai sur la Marquise de Pompadour, 
 
74 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 I do not deny that a man who has altogether miscalculated his 
 own powers and character, and is totally unfit for what his vanity 
 prompted him to court, or his weakness to accept, from persons as 
 mistaken about him as himself— I do not deny that such a man, fit 
 only to talk of bullocks or sail on a duck-pond, may be so frightened 
 and pummelled by a rough sea, as to be glad to be relieved, even 
 
 though he be hissed out of office. Lord was hissed out of office, 
 
 and was more happy in the relief than ashamed of the disgrace. But 
 the pleasure of such a man upon his resignation, as you call it, can 
 no more stamp him with the character of either dignity or philoso- 
 phy, than a general who avoids a battle from cowardice can acquire 
 the character of discretion. All other men, who are either dismissed 
 from their power, or feel forced, whether by honour or necessity, 
 to resign it, be assured do so with a secret regret 5 at least, I never 
 knew but one Lord Waldegrave." 
 
 Upon my begging to understand this allusion, he told me that, in 
 the time of George II., Lord Waldegrave, who had been his earliest 
 friend when he first embarked in politics, had continued, against his 
 wish, in the high post of governor of the Prince of Wales, now 
 George III., solely to oblige the king — that belaboured to lay down 
 his place for some time in vain, and applying to the Duke of New- 
 castle to assist him in doing so, his grace was absolutely astonished 
 that such a thing could enter into a man's head, and had not a con- 
 ception that his situation could be unpleasant. " Perhaps," said 
 Lord Waldegrave, " measuring my feelings by his own, and think- 
 ing that from four years' practice in politics I must have lost all 
 sensibility 1 . 1 ' 
 
 4 6 No continued Lord Castleton. " Believe that there are many 
 more Dukes of Newcastle than Lords Waldegrave, among ministers 
 when they retire. They may put a bold face upon it, and appear to 
 themselves ( to use your expression ) to quit in triumph. They may 
 even, if they please, fly in the face of the king, and affect to laugh 
 at his court ; perhaps heroically abuse his person; but, voluntary 
 or not, there is scarcely one that does not sigh over his departure 
 in secret, and would not hail with joy the moment of his return." 
 
 An opinion thus delivered, and from such an authority, could not 
 fail to have its due weight with me 5 and I afterwards recorded ver- 
 batim, and with pleasure, the particulars of this interesting con- 
 versation. 
 
 1 Waldegrave's Memoirs, 70. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 75 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.'— MY KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD INCREASES, AS 1 OBSERVE 
 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL AND FACTITIOUS GREATNESS. 
 
 O ! place and greatness, millions of false eyes 
 Are stuck upon thee ! Volumes of report 
 Run with these false and most contrarious guests 
 Upon thy doings. Thousand 'scapes of wit 
 Make thee the father of their idle fancies. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Measure for Measure. 
 
 From the latter part of the last chapter it may have appeared 
 that of courts and courtiers I had begun to form a pretty fair es- 
 timate, neither affecting philosophically to despise them, as those 
 unacquainted with them pretend to do, nor, on the other hand, 
 giving them a consequence to which they are not entitled. 
 
 With regard to the philosophic coxcombs who undervalue the 
 great because they are not great themselves, I soon found out their 
 selfish error ; for it is most certain there were as many, or, in pro- 
 portion to their numbers, more men, and women too, of worth, 
 and certainly of pleasing manners, than in the ranks from which 
 I had been elevated. There was indeed this difference in favour of 
 the great, that where they were selfish, envious, false^ revengeful, 
 or malicious, in the same manner as their inferiors were all these, 
 they shewed it not with the same coarseness, and rendered not vice 
 more hideous by their mode of indulging it. 
 
 I discovered, too, that what I had been disposed to think without 
 knowing why — namely, that there is a respect which we voluntarily 
 give to greatness, distinct from riches — was true ; and that the hold 
 upon opinion which greatness possesses is of a kind, and also of an 
 extent, which riches of themselves cannot attain. 
 
 I had sometimes puzzled myself to make this out, but I was 
 now in a field where I could observe it, and I found it arose from 
 the difference in the associations belonging to the two classes of 
 people. 
 
 Thus to come to particulars, the reader may perhaps remember 
 a very rich and very foolish Mr. Shanks, at Queen's, the son of a 
 foolish father, but a millionnaire . This young minion of wealth, 
 when he knew my position with Lord Castleton, was glad to claim 
 acquaintance with me ; nay, made his father call upon me, which 
 forced me to return his visit. I called upon him, therefore, in re- 
 turn, and was let into his fine hall by his fine porter 5 a fine foot- 
 
76 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 man, with gold-laced kneebands, conducted me to the stairs, and a 
 still finer gentleman in silk stockings asked me whom he should 
 announce. He preceded me. to the drawing-room, where I saw 
 crimson and gold chairs, crimson and gold curtains, mirrors in gold, 
 and pictures in gold. 
 
 All this while I walked with a firm step and an equal pulse ; I 
 had not considered one single moment whether there was any 
 thing in the shape of superiority which might inspire particular 
 reverence in the deity who presided over this temple of Mammon. 
 He was once, as I had been informed, a ragged schoolboy, for 
 whom sometimes another ragged schoolboy made his exercise to 
 save him from a flogging' — being in fact a very great dunce. He 
 was afterwards a clerk to a merchant, banker, broker, or what not, 
 till by a fortunate concurrence of circumstances he set up for him- 
 self, and by loans, contracts, and other speculations, he achieved 
 his million, and now acts the grandee. 
 
 What has such a man done — what is there in his manners, or 
 the associations thrown about him by his life, that should make me 
 consider him one pin's point more than I should have done had I 
 been at school with him, when he could not construe his Caesar j 
 or in Sun Court (so called, like lucus a non lucendo, because the 
 sun never enters it), where he made his first essay in business, in 
 copying letters, or the " Price Current?" 
 
 I mean not to undervalue him for this; on the contrary, if he 
 had borne his good fortune meekly, I could have rejoiced with 
 him. What I observe is, how little there was in him, from his 
 fortune alone, his three courses and champagne, that should fix 
 my attention or interest me one moment longer, or more intensely, 
 than if he were still glad of a luncheon with a glass of porter in an 
 oyster shop, as is said was formerly the case. 
 
 Now take me to one of the real nobles of the land — I mean not 
 merely the titled, but the highly-gifted and politely-educated as well 
 as highly-descended, men, and women too, who have passed their 
 lives and cultivated their manners in an undeviating intercourse 
 with persons like themselves, the genuine great as well as rich. 
 I do not say I respect their gold merely as such, more than that 
 of the ostentatious parvenu, for, for gold alone there is no respect; 
 but there is something in their magnificence, which, in consequence 
 of the attributes of the owners, creates different sensations. I have 
 heard of a tailor, who joining usury to tailoring, together made 
 500,000Z., and had cut velvet beds of 300Z. apiece. Who could for- 
 bear laughing at his chamber thus furnished? while the same cost- 
 liness in a royal palace would only call forth part of the respect 
 naturally due to royalty. 
 
 I enter the house of a great statesman or noble, imbued with the 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 77 
 
 fair consciousness of his dignity (dignity, not pride) ; I feel not the 
 same indifference which I did at the mansion of the mushroom 
 Shanks. In respect to the one, my associations call up an interest 
 and deference towards the person I come to visit 5 to the other res- 
 pect, if you please, for his character, if he deserve it, but none at 
 all from association. 
 
 But let me not fall into the injustice of censuring a whole class on 
 account of examples which form only exceptions. Shanks was con- 
 temptible, because he knew not the true use of riches, and em- 
 ployed them only to shew he never could be what he affected — the 
 true man of quality. Others, content with being what they are, pro- 
 duce and spread their advantages before the world, to the world's 
 benefit, and their own credit. My situation made me knoWn to 
 other millionnaires, very different from the bourgeois gentil- 
 homme I have been speaking of. Nor can I forget an Easter which 
 with Granville I once passed with Mr. Filzosbourne at his mansion 
 in Hampshire. Like Shanks, he was not born to his wealth, but 
 had obtained it by a happy concurrence of circumstances; but (not 
 like Shanks) he avoided ostentation for the very reason for which 
 the other practised it. 
 
 "I am not ashamed," said he, " of having been the author of 
 my own fortune ; but if I were, the readiest mode of proclaiming 
 it would be to shew myself vain of it." 
 
 Accordingly, he lived handsomely, but not prodigally ; had 
 every comfort, and many luxuries, but without waste. His chief 
 employment of the overplus of his wealth was in patronizing the 
 arts, the improvement of the soil, and the employment and reward 
 of his dependent poor. Of this his house, plantations, farms, and 
 villages, gave ample and delightful proof-, and the devotion of a 
 numerous and accomplished family who adored him, and the 
 blessings and prayers of an extensive neighbourhood, made up to 
 his heart all that it wanted-, for he sought not acquaintance merely 
 because they were titled, or such as those who paid Shanks for the 
 banquets he gave them, by undervaluing his taste, laughing at his 
 extravagance, and cutting him at court. 
 
 It was really beautiful to see the modest meekness with which 
 Mr. Filzosbourne bore his prosperity ; and with what little osten- 
 tation he displayed all the advantages of his immense fortune. 
 All that riches demanded of him— elegance, and even magnificence 
 — was gratified, but without self-sufficiency. To crown all, he 
 lived in patriarchal happiness, amidst a numerous progeny, of 
 whom the daughters, though all beautiful and accomplished, 
 shewed no vanity, and the sons, though highly educated, no pre- 
 sumption. All of them seemed to emulate their father's good sense 
 and plain simplicity of manners. 
 
^8 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 But to return to my general story. My object being now to know 
 the world, in this greater university of it, the metropolis, after 
 having been preparing for it in the perhaps more sacred, but less 
 stirring or diversified scene of Alma Mater ; I took every oppor- 
 tunity to study the many acquaintances to which my situation led, 
 and also to increase them at all proper opportunities. 
 
 For this purpose, by Granville's advice and interest, and Lord 
 Caslleton's countenance, I procured myself to be nominated a 
 member of more than one fashionable and political club ; and very 
 curious it was to study, in their respective precincts, the public 
 virtue of Whiggism ; the loyalty of Toryism 5 the modesty of 
 Dandyism ; and last, and not least, the sober, but not less con- 
 sequential, bearing of the country gentlemen. 
 
 These, however, were at least approachable 5 but, like the devils 
 in Milton— 
 
 " Others, apart, sat on a hill retired, 
 In thought more elevate ; " 
 
 for they looked down upon everybody else as tabood from their 
 society and conversation, and like the Spectator, were remarkable 
 chiefly for never opening their lips except in their own club. These 
 were the Exclusives, a class to be enrolled among whom the qua- 
 lifications were totally undefinable 5 for neither rank, fortune, parts, 
 or virtue, gave a right to their privileges, which though for the 
 most part originally usurped, yet when like other usurpations they 
 were confirmed by consent, were defended with vigour against all 
 pretenders. One only accomplishment J observed to be indispen- 
 sable for success among them — that cool and impenetrable as- 
 surance which Folhergill had talked of as belonging to them, and 
 without which no Exclusive could flourish. 
 
 In regard, however, to all these classes, the first observation I 
 made was, that as a class they were all aristocrats ; and, what I 
 thought strange, the Whigs, with the cause of the people for ever in 
 their mouths in public, were the proudest and most exclusive of 
 them all in private. 
 
 I asked Lord Caslielon the reason of this, and he said he supposed 
 that to think and hold themselves far higher in society than all other 
 men or women (for this exciusiveness was most largely shared by 
 the sex), was the only consolation they had for being so long out of 
 office. 
 
 Be this as if may, I cultivated them all in their turn, with more 
 or less success, and my daily advance in knowledge of my fellow- 
 men was not less rapid than amusing. It was, however, still not so 
 universal as I could have wished. The three learned professions, as 
 they are called (though I should have thought them belter styled 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAIN. 79 
 
 the three pedantries), law, physic, and divinity, were sui generis. 
 They kept by themselves, and were unmixed, like the Jews (by 
 the way, another class of some consequence at this time of day, in 
 this commercial state ) 5 and I found that, to be a complete citizen 
 of the world, much more was wanting than could be supplied at 
 Tattersall's, or the clubs in St. Jatnes's-street. 
 
 I, however, as it was, got at a good deal of life, and by degrees 
 came pretty well to know, and be known by, many lords and gen- 
 tlemen of this era. In time, too, I broke ground with some of the 
 most eminent of the class I have mentioned as tabood to all the 
 rest. Those, however, I observed were the happiest who, though 
 thought ordinary by the others, were content with their lot, and had 
 little desire to quit it, though to be admitted within the magic circle 
 of fashionable life, or even to be initiated in the mysteries of that 
 bona dea — Exclusiveness. 
 
 One of the high priests of this goddess had now become an in- 
 teresting object of my study, for it must be owned he was unique 
 as to character, manners, and the good fortune that seemed always 
 to attend him 5 so much so, that it would be an affront to the Lord 
 Petronius not to let him have a chapter to himself. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE LORD PETRONIUS AND HIS CONTRAST. 
 
 There is a noblemau of the court at door, would speak to you. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 1 Henry IV. 
 
 Wilt thou dine with me, Apemantus ? 
 No ! I eat not Lords. 
 
 Timon of Athens. 
 
 The Lord Petronius was one of my patron's brother ministers, 
 and was so much a man ( as I have called others ) sui generis, and 
 had acquired a sort of reputation with so little right to it, that he 
 became the object of my study. He was not without parts, nor, as 
 far as letters were concerned, had education been thrown away upon 
 him. But he was the least of a man of business, and the most of a 
 man of idleness, that ever sauntered on the political scene. I say 
 sauntered, because, with fondness enough for office, and particularly 
 its emoluments ( wholly, however, with a view to gratify his volup- 
 tuousness and indolent disposition ) , he seemed to have little nolion 
 
80 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 that to know any thing, or do any thing, but pocket his salary, dis- 
 tribute his patronage, and live an easy court life, was the business 
 of a minister. 
 
 Though, from a total want of energy, the Lord Petronius was any 
 thing but an Alcibiades,— and, in this, did not resemble even the 
 famous Roman courtier 1 whose name he bore, — yet, in most other 
 things, he approached near to the latter person, as described by 
 Tacitus. For, like him, " he was a voluptuary, who gave himself 
 up to sleep all day, and spent the night in pleasures-, and as other 
 men made themselves famous for their industry, he gained his 
 fame from idleness. Yet he was not considered a mere prodigal, 
 but a man who knew how to spend his estate with a delicate palate. 
 All his words were the more agreeable because they manifested a 
 sort of unaffected freedom, and appeared to be spoken with a kind 
 of pleasing neglect." 
 
 So far the Roman, according to the historian of Rome. But the 
 English lord, though a minister, added to this a philosophic indif- 
 ference to all political reputation, and the thousand faults proved 
 upon him, provided his place was not touched, gave him no care. 
 For public opinion he had, indeed, from mere dissoluteness ( not 
 superiority of mind), the most entire contempt. He treated all men 
 not in office, or not in Parliament ( and even many who were), as 
 Coriolanus did the mob — 
 
 " Hang 'em ,—<they say ! — 
 They'll sit by the fire and presume to know 
 What's done i' the Capitol." 
 
 And yet, for the sake of popularity, as a means of power, Lord 
 Petronius pretended to be the friend of these men whom in his heart 
 he despised. 
 
 In his private life the same epicureanism was his distinguishing 
 feature; nil admirari, together with a marked gallantry, and a 
 fastidiousness, amounting to a disdainful coldness, towards his in- 
 feriors, placed him at the head of fashion, and went far (strange to 
 say) to maintain him in his political power, whence, but for this, a 
 total want of discretion, in not concealing his contempt for the 
 business he was obliged to do, and the persons with whom he was 
 obliged to do it, would have long ago dislodged him. 
 
 Being the focus of extensive connexions, all of them courtiers and 
 deities of fashion, and himself what is called a complete woman's 
 man, he became a favourite in the highest circles, and had the address 
 to be continued long on the list of the ministry. 
 
 LordCastleton could well have spared him if he had chosen to go; 
 
 1 Petronius Arbiter. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN 81 
 
 but he chose to stay, and was too highly connected to be removed. 
 As my patron, therefore, sometimes in confidence remarked to me, 
 he was one of those whom one meets with in the world, of whom 
 we say (in our sleeve) — Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te. 
 
 He certainly was the first man (unless it was Sir Christopher 
 Hatton 1 ) who had acquired and maintained a seat in the Cabinet 
 from being an exquisite. 
 
 Indolent, however, and supercilious as Lord Petronius was, both 
 as a man and a minister, he was forced sometimes to submit to bitter 
 rebuffs, and bear lecturing from people he affected to despise, when 
 talking of them with persons of his own class. For he was fond of 
 appearing to be above being influenced by any consideration for 
 those he called the canaille, that is, all who were not of his own 
 clique, or at least who moved not in a certain sphere, much more 
 subalterns or men in trade. 
 
 He once, however, received a most abrupt and unceremonious 
 lesson from a rough political cynic of the lower order, who had no 
 pretensions to dandyism himself, and did not like it the more because 
 in the person of a minister. On the contrary, he had a sort of 
 malevolent pleasure in telling coxcombs, high or low, what he 
 thought of them. A paper detailing a little secret history was' pub- 
 lished by the cynic, as I have called him (and as Lord Petronius 
 certainly thought him), which, as it was amusing, I have preserved. 
 
 A deputation, it seems from a considerable set of manufacturers, 
 consisting of the rough, uncombed Cato 1 have mentioned, whose 
 name was Crabthorn, and another, a Mr. Pliant ( the very opposite 
 to him in nerves, particularly afraid of a fashionable courtier, and 
 only chosen on account of his commercial influence ), waited upon 
 Lord Petronius one day by appointment, in order to explain their 
 case to him. 
 
 My lord had had the indiscretion to talk of their expected meeting 
 as one of the bores of his office, calling them "apron-men," and 
 "canaille" to whom he was bound to be civil, particularly on 
 the eve of an election. This, as every thing is repeated, soon came 
 to be known to our cynic and his timorous coadjutor — who attended 
 in Downing Street with different feelings — the one blunt by nature, 
 and proud of it, the other timorous, and particularly afraid of a 
 great man's disdain. 
 
 On their first arrival, the Cerberus, seeing they were of very ex- 
 traordinary appearance., as usual growled a little, till the chief 
 messenger appeared, who, as they stated that they came by appoint- 
 ment and delivered their cards, immediately assumed a tone of 
 great civility, and requested them to walk up into the waiting-room, 
 for my lord would see them directly. 
 
 " First promoted by Elizabeth for his fine dancing, afterwards made Chancellor. 
 II. 6 
 
82 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 The change of manner struck Mr. Pliant; but Crabthorn, an 
 older stager, said it was all according to rule, and meant nothing. 
 
 I can never instii into you," said he, " that political influence, 
 however trivial, and whether in the shape of a duke or a dustman, 
 immediately levels all impediment and opens all doors. Now don't 
 be such a fool as to part with your own consequence before Lord 
 Petronius ; or, because his coat is better cut, and he makes a better 
 bow (particularly when he bows you out, as he soon will do) ; in 
 short, it is not because he would beat you in a ball or dancing- 
 room, that you are to lose one atom of your weight with him on 
 the business we are upon. Be assured we are of more consequence 
 to him than he to us. Look around you 5 see these superb sofas, 
 carpets, tables, and lounging-chairs 5 look out of window and enjoy 
 the fine view; the park, the gardens, the distant palace, the water, 
 the parade, the guards, the obsequious crowds coming and going, 
 all circling round him in his orbit, like humble satellites. You may 
 contrast this if you please with your own comparatively inferior, 
 but not unreal importance; but I should be glad to know who it is 
 that maintains my lord in all this pomp and power? Why, the pub- 
 lic voice, or what we choose to call by that name; that is, you and 
 I, and such as you and I. We influence an election; say but one. 
 That is good. Suppose two. Better. But, better still, we here, at 
 this hour, and upon our present business, influence a powerful 
 party in Parliament. Perhaps ten voles will depend upon this con- 
 ference. Do you think my lord will not be civility itself? Did you 
 not see how his groom crouched? Hold up your head, man 5 there's 
 money bid for you. 11 
 
 Mr. Pliant said all this was true enough, and he did not much 
 fear the reception that day with my lord. 
 
 " But, were we in a court drawing-room," said he, " would not 
 he laugh at our homeliness? and has he not called us canaille and 
 apron-men, to his brother courtiers?" 
 
 "Perhaps in secret he would laugh," said Crabthorn; " that is, 
 in his sleeve. Let him. We laugh in our's at him, and force him 
 to play the hypocrite while we are honest men." 
 
 This opinion was afterwards communicated to the Lord Petronius 
 himself, in no very measured terms. For though the application 
 was granted, and, as was intended, with uncommon graciousness, 
 it was a graciousness by no means approved by the sturdy feelings 
 of Mr. Crabthorn, who complained that there was far too much 
 condescension in it for a Briton to submit to. He therefore wrote 
 him the following letter : — 
 
 "My Lord— Our interview being over, allow me to express our 
 satisfaction at the promise you have given to support the object of 
 our application, and at the same time our wish that we could thank 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 83 
 
 you more than we do, for the pain it must have cost you to infuse 
 so much condescension into your reception of us. Is not con- 
 descension, my lord, a force put upon the sincerity of some very 
 great man, when, for objects of his own, he feels obliged to shew 
 civility to a very little one? We have heard of the compliment you 
 paid us in the appellation you bestowed upon us of 'apron-men,' 
 and ' canaille to whom you were forced to be civil. You, my 
 lord, are indeed no 'apron-man,' in the sense in which you used 
 the term, whatever you may be under another and very different 
 signification of it, in which perhaps you glory. In this sense you 
 do, indeed, I believe, understand aprons better than we. You are 
 the head of fashion, and, for what reason we know not, you are 
 kept in the cabinet as a court favourite. 
 
 " To this we must all defer, and allow you to disdain, at the 
 same time that you use us. It is fit, however, that you should know 
 this conduct is reciprocal 5 and, while we laugh at your finery as 
 well as hypocrisy, we use you in our turns in support of our ob- 
 ject. All the difference is this small one — that you are a courtier 
 and a hypocrite \ we plebeians and honest men." 
 
 Stinging as this letter was, and degrading as it might seem to a 
 mind of common mould, I must do Lord Pelronius the justice to 
 say he was a great deal above being hurt by it. At least so he carried 
 it in public. He read it, for their amusement, to all his friends, the 
 ladies of the bed-chamber and maids of honour in particular, who 
 all admired the uncommon test of fashion which his apathy upon it 
 exhibited. 
 
 I own myself I envied him this impervious structure of mind, 
 which, I was told, was the very first quality an English minister of 
 state could possess 5 and on the force of this example, and one or 
 two others, afforded by the same noble lord, I set it down in my 
 tablet, that not merely in the case of the exclusives above mentioned, 
 one great cause of success in this world was impenetrable as- 
 surance. 
 
 Of this j in the person of the same Lord Petronius, the following 
 was another instance. 
 
 A gay lady, not over celebrated for correctness, and the known 
 mistress of one of Lord Pelronius's most intimate friends, thinking 
 it was only fair to have a share in that friendship, admitted my lord 
 into a considerable portion of her good graces. They had frequent 
 meetings, but their rendezvous was at last discovered by the little 
 accident, that the injured parly had repaired to the same spot on 
 a business of his own of the same kind. 
 
 The whole town rang with the scandal, and in my simplicity I 
 said to Granville, when he told me the story, that I supposed Lord 
 
84 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 Petronius had fled lo the groves and fields of the country, to avoid 
 the shame of the eclat. 
 
 Granville, pitying my naivete, laughingly observed, that he had 
 certainly fled lo groves and fields, but not of the country ; for they 
 were the groves of Kensington and Hyde Park. 
 
 "Heavens!' 1 exclaimed I — "what, to make his shame more 
 notorious? Why, everybody would point at him." 
 
 "The very thing he wishes,' 1 replied Granville; " for do you not 
 see that his consequence in the world depends upon his notoriety? 
 As to the shame, therefore, it causes but little difficulty; nay, he 
 would glory in it everywhere, but for the correctness of the court, 
 which he is forced lo regard. In all other places, his reputation is 
 increased by it; and his very place in the ministry depending upon 
 his character for fashion, this discovery is rather to his advantage 
 than otherwise." 
 
 " To me," said I, " this is quite unaccountable." 
 
 " Indeed ! Pray how long have you been in London?" 
 
 " Six months. 11 
 
 " And have not discovered that to brazen out a thing which com- 
 mon minds would be ashamed of, is the only way for an uncommon 
 one to succeed in acquiring a great fashionable reputation, or to 
 preserve it if already acquired !" 
 
 So much for Lord Petronius, whose pardon I must implore, if 
 here, as it were in the same breath, I speak, and place by his side, 
 another character, as opposite to his as light (o darkness, as to prin- 
 ciples and manners ; and yet not far from resembling him in self- 
 sufficiency or pride. " 
 
 He was an old college acquaintance of mine, whom I now met 
 with in London, Roger Teslwood ; a man of much mind, and little 
 fortune, good connections, but of so touchy a nature that he could 
 never turn them to account. They would all have helped him, more 
 or less, in his race in life 5 but unhappily, to offer help was to affront 
 him. One of them, a distinguished prelate, promised to provide for 
 him, if he would take orders-, but, he said he would not be toad- 
 eater to any bishop in England. Another, a judge, proposed the 
 bar ; but as he could not hug attornies, he was sure he never should 
 succeed. The army : he was loo old to be commanded by boys. A 
 place at court : he was a gentleman, but not a gentleman usher. 
 Parliament : he would not condescend to be a party man. 
 
 He was fond of making lours to gratify his love of scenery, but 
 always by himself; for he never would pay tribute, he said, to the 
 vanity of the rich, by visiting their show-houses. He could there- 
 fore accompany no one who had not the same temper; and though 
 an amateur of painting, he often refused himself the pleasure of 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 85 
 
 inspecting a rich cabinet, because it administered, he thought, to 
 a triumph over him to which the owner had no right. 
 
 What could such a man do? Too fond of the hum of the world, 
 though he affected to despise it, to shut himself up in a country 
 village, he lived in retreat indeed, but at Kensington, whence he daily 
 visited London; and though cutting (because he declared he was 
 cut by ) everybody, he lived a mere, though a keen looker-on ■ now 
 and then bringing his talents to bear in criticising men and man- 
 ners, in which he was too sour to be just; or works of literature, in 
 which his taste and judgment were conspicuous. 
 
 This gentleman and myself, though not what might be called 
 intimate, had had a very fair university acquaintance. That is, we 
 were not ashamed, if chance brought it about, (for it never was by 
 design ), of being seen sometimes arm-in-arm with one another. 
 We met sometimes too at wine parties after dinner ; nay, and had 
 played at bowls together in the bowling-green at New College, of 
 which he was a member. And yet, far from claiming me as an ac- 
 quaintance after my elevation, he had never come near me. 
 
 It was by the chance of belonging to the same club that we re- 
 newed our intercourse, and it was not his fault that we did not con- 
 tinue to stand aloof. For though he had so far consented to inspect 
 society as to belong to the club, it was with little view of mixing in 
 it as an associate. He had the fewest possible acquaintance, and 
 seemed to wish those few less in number ; sitting generally in a 
 corner by himself, with his hat over his eyes, yet, observing every 
 thing, and listening to everybody, but speaking to none. 
 
 Thus it was a week before I had exactly made him out, and when 
 I rather reproached him, as he owned he knew me from the first, for 
 not accosting me, he drily said, he wished to see whether a scholar 
 of Queen's and a minister's secretary could continue one and the 
 same person and only because he found this might be, he con- 
 sented to renew his acquaintance with me. 
 
 This sort of character, from being uncommon, became an object 
 of my study, particularly as it was contrasted with another, also an 
 Oxford companion, of about the same intimacy, and known to him 
 as well as me, but opposite to him in every particular. This was a 
 young man of the name of Sweetland, who certainly deserved his 
 name, for his temper and civility seemed as sleek as his skin, which 
 always shone with a neatness that was spotless. His perpetual 
 readiness to oblige had already done wonders for him, and though 
 not so well connected, and by no means so enlightened as Testwood, 
 he was far better welcomed in society 5 and while friend Roger was 
 pouting lonely in his corner, Sweetland was rarely seen but in a 
 knot either of politicians or dandies 5 the first, often men of con- 
 
86 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 sequence, who made use of him; the last, men of fashion, who to- 
 lerated him. 
 
 With all his fault's Testwood had most of my attention. 1 soon 
 found he was any thing but happy, and having long known the cause, 
 I was sometimes smitten with the hope of curing his error. The 
 curate and barber had as much chance of curing Don Quixotic 
 
 I one day called upon him in his box near Kensington. I was 
 on horseback, and after reconnoitring me from a window, he opened 
 the door himself. 
 
 44 From your groom's livery," said he, " I thought you had 
 been Lord Rockville, whose triennial visit I have sworn never to 
 receive again I neither seek, nor does he owe me any civility ;but 
 civility once in three years is an insult." 
 
 " lam sorry you think so," said I, 44 nor have I ever heard that 
 Lord Rockville insulted any one." 
 
 44 Judge for yourself," answered he. " I had once occasion to 
 send to him to ask for a piece of official information, which he is 
 paid for giving 5 and he began his reply with 4 Lord Rockville in- 
 forms Mr. Testwood so and so," — as if Mr. Testwood was not 
 worthy the little civility of note compliments. But this perhaps 
 would not appear to you an insult. You, who are already rubbed 
 smooth by the world, and bask in its sunshine, can know nothing 
 of its coldness or its pride. You, and those you herd with, are too 
 dependant upon one another to see each other's faults, or the faults 
 of our vitiated society. I am not a Cato, or a Cassius, but neither 
 am T made 4 to bend in awe of such a thing as I myself. ' I therefore 
 keep all usurped superiority at a distance, and hold all expression 
 of it insulting." 
 
 44 But I have heard you say," said I, 44 that Lord Rockville was 
 even your schoolfellow." 
 
 44 Yes ; and he once, and once only, actually asked me to dinner, 
 and, as I had no reason to expect such a thing, I own I was pleased. 
 But, would you believe it? I found it was only to fill a place at his 
 table, made vacant by the sudden failure of another guest. The 
 shortness of (he notice, and my meeting him casually in the streel, 
 might have told me this, but I was a fool, and did not immediately 
 observe it. However, I duly appreciated it, and resolved never to 
 go again." 
 
 44 He asked you then again, and you refused?" 
 44 Why no, I cannot say that ; but I would have refused, had he 
 invited me." 
 
 This recurrence to what I knew was his dominant feeling at col- 
 lege shewed me that it had never quilted him during our separa- 
 tion 5 but I, as usual, combated it. 
 
 44 Poor Lord Rockville ! " said I. 44 1 cannot help thinking this a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 little hard; that because a man, who, you say yourself, owes you 
 no civility at all, paid you some little of what he did not owe, he is 
 therefore to be called proud and insulting ! Why not accept of good 
 when it is offered, because it happens not to be more good than we 
 have a right to? You remember our fellow-collegian Sweetland. 
 See how he has got on." 
 
 " I beseech you," cried Testwood sternly, " affront me not by so 
 nauseating an example. Poor as I comparatively am, I would not 
 exchange lots with Sweetland for all that he calls honour. He 
 4 cannot dig,' but 4 to beg he is not ashamed and though he has 
 turned his begging to account, he is still the beggar, still the syco- 
 phant he always was — in short, the dependant though successful 
 tool of an ambition (silly in itself), to be tolerated by fine people, 
 who would not care a farthing if he were hanged." 
 
 " Are you not too hard upon him ? " asked I. u I allow his non- 
 sense, and his love for the honourables, and the Lady Marys, to 
 whose notice he could not originally have pretended. But is it more 
 than justice to say, that they are the sort of people, whom, with- 
 out their titles or finery, he would have sought for as his compa- 
 nions? How then can we blame him ? " 
 
 All the answer I could get to this was — " The fellow avoided me 
 once, because he was riding with a duke, and I on foot. Are such 
 things to be borne?" 
 
 "Are you sure of your because?" said I. "Might he not have 
 been so occupied as not to have seen you ? " 
 
 " Yes : occupied, I say, with a duke, whose tool he is. Psha ! It 
 is loo ridiculous to defend him. Pass to any other subject." 
 
 Seeing he grew angry, to appease him, I answered, " You are 
 at least safe in this new residence you have chosen, and escape the 
 heart-burnings you have experienced." 
 
 But here also I failed; for, like other people who have weak- 
 nesses of which they do not wish to be reminded, he is extremely 
 jealous of being thought jealous. 
 
 " I have no heart-burnings," said he, "and never had ; and to 
 
 say so, only makes you out one of those 6 d d good-natured 
 
 friends,' always on the quest for faults, under pretence of curing 
 them." 
 
 I found I had received my quietus, and hence-forward gave up 
 my intention to reclaim him. 
 
88 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A MAN OF QUALITY NONDESCRIPT.*— -MORE OF GRANVILLE AND LADY HUNGERFORD.— 
 WITH THE LATTER I HAVE AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW. — OF THE FEELING SHE 
 DISPLAYED, AND OF THE MYSTERY WHICH ACCOMPANIED IT. 
 
 If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him some good counsel. 
 
 I am he who was so love-shaked ; 
 I pray you tell me your remedy. 
 
 Shakspeare.— As You Like h. 
 
 The heroes of my last chapter have too long detained me from 
 persons of more consequence to my own heart and mind. For such 
 a friend as Granville, I have neglected the mention of him too long. 
 He came to me often, and did me much good in polishing off Ox- 
 ford rust, and putting me au fait of things and characters which 
 were quite new to me. 
 
 I rewarded him by talking to him, and allowing him to talk to 
 me, of Lady Hungerford. In this I had a fellow-feeling, for it was 
 evident he loved that superior person both with fondness and admi- 
 ration, yet with very little hope, even had he been in circumstances 
 to address her. 
 
 When I combated this, and observed upon the complacency with 
 which she always spoke to, and of him, he would shake his head, 
 and say, it was merely her good-nature towards a person who she 
 could nol help seeing was her slave. 
 
 "For," said he, "with a thousand in her train, I acquit her of 
 ail coquetry. I only wish her nature was not so kind. Could I think 
 myself ill-used ? as you once said in regard to Bertha, I possibly 
 might get free. You have, however, got free without ill-usage." 
 
 " If I have done so," returned I, with a sigh, " it has been from 
 despair 5 but you have shewn me no reason why you should des- 
 pair. You have at least never been dismissed." 
 
 "I have never been delirious," answered he, smiling, "in the 
 presence of a waiting gentle-woman." 
 
 This produced much talk both of Bertha and Lady Hungerford, 
 in which Granville owned to me that his hopes, or rather his feel- 
 ings (for hopes he had none), were as chimerical as mine had been 
 for Bertha. 
 
 " That fatal winter at Paris I " said he. "Who could see her, 
 the admired, par excellence) for elegance, tournure, and bril- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 89 
 
 liancy, even in that brilliant capital, and not love, though despair- 
 ing of success? Pronounced by the queen (herself a perfect judge) 
 the most perfect woman of fashion among all the foreigners 5 loved 
 by her own sex, idolized by ours 5 courted in marriage by more 
 than one noble of the highest rank in France 5 — who could fail to 
 give her his heart, and drink the sweet poison of her beauty and 
 manners, though he knew it would destroy him ? Yet are those man- 
 ners and that beauty the least of her attractions. It is the mental 
 charm of her conversation, her sense and rectitude, that take and 
 imprison you, so sweetly, that from your prison you do not even 
 wish to get free. In the youth of Bertha 
 
 4 There is a prone and speechless dialect, 
 Such as moves men ; ' 
 
 but this maturer, though still lovely lady, hath also 
 
 ' Prosperous art, 
 When she will play with reason and discourse, 
 And well she can persuade.' 
 
 You yourself have felt her persuasive eloquence." 
 
 44 That is not more warmly said than true," observed 1 5 44 and I 
 now fully understand what it was that shielded your heart from one 
 who so entirely filled mine." 
 
 44 Perhaps," said he, 44 we are not of the same dispositions in 
 these points. You are little used yet to the world yourself, and a re- 
 tired beauty, like that lovely, secluded flower we talk of, has there- 
 fore more charms for you than for one ten years older, and almost 
 blase by his knowledge of artificial life. I love diamonds, you a 
 simple rose. I acknowledge Bertha is the sweetest rose that ever 
 bloomed 5 but allow on your part, that Honora is the most polished 
 diamond that ever shone." 
 
 44 1 cannot stand this poetry, " said 1 5 44 1 who am a poor mat- 
 ter-of-fact secretary 5 but carry it to Lady Hungerford, who is her- 
 self full of poetry and genius, and she will accept it ; probably 
 reward you for it." 
 
 44 Reward me/ " exclaimed he. 44 Yes 5 probably as great men 
 used formerly to reward poor poets for dedication, with a few gui- 
 neas. How little more, in comparison, am I to Lady Hungerford, 
 lhan one of these poor poets? " 
 
 44 Away," returned I, 44 with this humility. You are nobly born 
 as well as herself." 
 
 44 Yes ! and a younger brother." 
 
 44 Ride well!" 
 
 44 And can scarce afford a horse." 
 
90 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 " Dance well ! " 
 
 " And thirty-one and a half years old." 
 "What then?" 
 
 " I have heard her say no man should dance after thirty, or wo - 
 man after four-and-twenty." 
 
 " The girls of twenty-five must be much obliged to her," said t. 
 " Of course she never dances herself? " 
 
 "Never in England. But in France, Terpsichore herself not 
 more graceful." 
 
 " More of Parnassus still ! " 
 
 " How can it be helped, when she is herself a Muse?" 
 
 In such conversation as this, Granville sometimes beguiled an 
 hour with me 5 and seeing that it gave him a sort of melancholy 
 pleasure, I never repressed it, any more than the castles of hope 
 which he sometimes built, when he thought his mistress distin- 
 guished him from other men, or Lord Gastleton, who was his poli- 
 tical patron, flattered him with the expectation of an embassy, which 
 had been for some lime designed for him. 
 
 It may be supposed that the interest I felt for Granville made me 
 take every opportunity that offered, to penetrate, if I could, Lady 
 Hungerford's sentiments concerning him ; but except great suavity 
 in talking of> and a rallying tone in talking to him, I could observe 
 nothing particular. 
 
 Meantime, I made use freely of his experience, in training me 
 on to the knowledge I so much wanted of the men and manners in 
 which I was now to be daily conversant. For though I certainly, as 
 I said, progressed even out of doors, and, in the closet, had the 
 delight of finding I gave more and more satisfaction to Lord Castle- 
 ton, yet there hourly sprang up things, situations, and characters, 
 which wanted more elucidation than my hitherto secluded life en- 
 abled me to unravel. 
 
 I have mentioned, in the case of the Lord Petronius, which I had 
 by Granville's assistance pretty well made out, how it was possible, 
 in this country, for a mere inefficient voluptuary, by dint of con- 
 nexions and a fashionable reputation, to be placed in the rank of a 
 minister. But there was also another object of my study in another 
 peer, in whom two most inconsistent qualities seemed so blended, 
 that, to me, he was an absolute riddle. 
 
 The first time I saw this nobleman was at one of the evening 
 parties at Lord Castleton's, where were many grandees, foreign 
 ministers, and ladies of the court. Nothing could exceed his lolly 
 demeanour. Scarcely did he vouchsafe a word even to an ambassa- 
 dor, nor more than a slight drop of his chin to ladies of the highesl 
 rank. To one of the royal dukes alone did he seem to unbend and 
 listen with complacency. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 91 
 
 He was majestic in person, rich in his apparel, and, in truth, 
 became his garter well. 
 
 As he had vouchsafed a conversation of at least five minutes to 
 Lady Hungerford, the only person in the room, except his royal 
 highness, who had detained him so long, I ventured, when he left 
 her, to ask who he was, 
 
 "The Duke of Glenmore," whispered she, 64 the proudest man 
 in England, but also the greatest politician and parly man. From 
 your situation, Lord Castleton will no doubt present you to him." 
 
 Lord Castleton, who had just joined her, said laughingly, ** I 
 am not sure if I dare, unless he hold out a signal for it himself, 
 which', when Mr. Clifford has got a little deeper into party, he pro- 
 bably will. To-night I see is one of his proud nights, so perhaps 
 we had better defer the attempt." 
 
 All this appeared to me a mystery, which I did not know how to 
 expound, especially when I afterwards saw the duke, with an air of 
 eagerness totally the reverse of what he had hitherto shewn, take 
 the arm of a person, by no means one of the distinguished, but 
 with something even vulgar in his appearance. Leading him into 
 a recess of an inner room, he commenced a conversation with him 
 in which he seemed much interested, and which lasted full ten 
 minutes. 
 
 Lady Hungerford saw this as well as I, and laughingly said, 
 " Mr. Hoskyns is a lucky man } that is more than one of us poor 
 ladies could get from his grace in a whole week." 
 
 I asked what it could mean, when she referred' me to Granville, 
 who had just joined us. 
 
 u Ask this gentleman," said she, playfully, " who certainly un- 
 derstands men, though he says he cannot make out women. But if 
 he can make out the duke, he will, indeed, be a great Apollo." 
 
 She said this as the duke passed out of the room to his carriage, 
 which was called, and we heard him saying to his satellite (for such 
 he seemed), " Hoskyns, I am going to White's, and will drop you 
 by the way ; " upon which they both disappeared. 
 
 "I think," said Granville, addressing Lady Hungerford, " I can 
 answer the call you make upon me without any great boast of an 
 insight into the characters of men, though, as you truly hint, my 
 penetration in regard to women may be questionable." 
 
 " I am glad you at least see your errors," returned the lady, with 
 some quickness, " after your rudeness this morning. By the way, I 
 had forgot I had resolved not to speak to you." 
 
 Granville bowed, and with an air of melancholy, though also of 
 gallantry, replied ; 
 
 " May you ever forget such cruel resolves. I was almost afraid 
 of venturing here to-night, in the fear that you would execute them , 
 
92 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 and I shall ever feel obliged to the duke for having occasioned this 
 forge If illness." 
 
 " Well," replied she, " as I have been surprised into it, I may as 
 well forgive you, but only provided you retract." 
 
 " For such an object I certainly will," answered Granville, " all 
 but the last line.'''' 
 
 " Very prettily said," observed the lady $ and I thought her 
 colour heightened as she smiled 5 and she smiled beautifully. 
 
 Meantime I was in nubibus, and could only see there was some- 
 thing particular between them, which, thinking I had no business 
 with, I walked to another part of the room, where the belle of the 
 season, a Miss Falconer, with the mien of a sultana, and eyes like 
 basilisks, outshining the many diamonds that adorned her, had, as 
 usual, gathered a large portion of the company to gaze, criticize, 
 and admire her. 
 
 " I hope you are one of the adorers," said Lady Hungerford, 
 when I rejoined her. u Here is Mr. Granville will not stir a step 
 towards her, I suppose knowing and fearing the danger, like a 
 discreet man as he is." 
 
 " There may be mettle more attractive," observed Granville, 
 looking with great feeling at Lady Hungerford, " which may belter 
 account for it 5 for, as for discretion, I wish I was what you have 
 been so good as to call me. I fear I am loo fond of the last line 
 to deserve it." 
 
 Puzzled again with this sort of watchword, I no more joined in 
 the conversation^ which, however, Granville explained, and en- 
 lightened me as to the duke, in a conference I had with him the 
 next day. For walking by White's in my way to Whitehall, I saw 
 the Duke of Glenmore installed at the window amid a throng of aris- 
 tocrats, and seemingly much in his element. Of a sudden, Hoskyns, 
 and a man apparently still more ordinary than himself (both in 
 looks and manners), passed by, and the duke instantly darted after 
 them into the street, abandoning all his fine friends to engage in an 
 eager conversation with them, which lasted long after they had 
 got into the park, whither I had followed them, in my way to Ihe 
 office. 
 
 In the morning papers I had read that the duke had the day be- 
 fore given a grand political dinner, over which he presided "_with 
 his usual grace and popularity," and at which, among many lords 
 and gentlemen, were Mr. Hoskyns, M.P., and Mr. Gubbins, M.P. 
 Mr. Gubbins, 1 afterwards found, was this other companion whom 
 the duke had joined, and seemed most familiar with them both. 
 
 I own I wished much to make out this riddle j but Granville, 
 whom I found waiting for me at the office, solved it a few minutes 
 afterwards. Upon my observing that I wondered the duke could be 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 93 
 
 reckoned proud when he seemed so familiar with such ordinary 
 persons as I had just seen him with, and that the papers even talked 
 of his popularity — 
 
 " Yes ; he is popular, 1 ' said Granville, " but then it is in his own 
 way, for he is proud as Lucifer at the same time." 
 
 ''Can that be? "asked I. 
 
 " In appearance, not," said he, " and yet compatible 5 for it de- 
 pends upon what is the character of the popularity, and what of the 
 pride. For example, his popularity is all of a public, his pride of 
 a private, nature. He will attend all public meetings, and be very 
 condescending with his party and followers, will even flatter them 
 in speeches, and give them dinners. The duke's fort indeed is the 
 management of a party, and his highest ambition parliamentary in- 
 fluence ; for which purpose he would rather be the arbiter of an 
 election than ofthe^fate of Europe. His dinners, therefore ( of one 
 of which you saw the account ), are all party dinners, got up for 
 the occasion 5 sometimes at the Clarendon 5 not in his house : or if 
 there, no one can penetrate from the dining-room into the in- 
 terior. Even the leaders among his supporters know him not in 
 domestic life, unless they are of his own class. He has his room of 
 business, but all his other rooms are closed even to the men • but 
 as to their wives and daughters, did anybody ever know the duchess 
 open her saloon to them, or notice them anywhere but at the sa- 
 turnalia of an election ball ? Though they even happen to be of a class 
 to go to court, if not of the initiated, to speak to them would be 
 horror 5 to look at them, loss of caste. With all his smiles, in this 
 the duke is as impenetrable as his wife 5 who, with her daughters, 
 in regard to his most zealous friends ( except, as I say, they are of 
 his own rank ), is as closely sealed to them as if in a harem." 
 
 " He pays, then, it should seem," said I, " a high price for his 
 popularity?" 
 
 " Every man pays for an expensive hobby," returned Granville, 
 " and this is his. I have seen him, like Bolingbroke, on his horse— 
 
 ' Who his aspiring rider seemed to know — ' 
 
 riding with a knot of political club-men in the park, and seemingly 
 hail-fellow-well-met with thern all. Perhaps that very night he met 
 some of them at the Opera, and avoided them, or was suddenly 
 struck blind, for fear of being forced to recognise them." 
 
 " How ridiculous," cried I, with a laugh, 44 and how contemp- 
 tible; I would rather dig in my garden, and live upon potatoes." 
 
 I own all this astonished me, though I began to remember what 
 the sagacious Folhergill had told me to the same effect, and it soon 
 grew too familiar a custom among what are called public men ever 
 to be noticed again. 
 
94 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 Indeed, one ofthe first things I remarked in Ibis world of fashion 
 and politics, so new to me, was, that it by no means followed from 
 the closest intimacies, nay apparent attachments, between leaders 
 and subalterns, that there should be the smallest approach to even 
 acquaintance between their families. Going once with Lord Castle- 
 ton to dine with Lord Tancred, at his villa, where we found some 
 young ladies had just arrived before us — 
 
 "You have company?" said Lord Castleton, to one of the 
 daughters of the house. 
 
 " No;" said the young lady, 44 no company, only two or three 
 of those old people that my father thinks it right to invite now and 
 then, because their father and he are so connected in business." 
 
 But even in this, be it observed, Lord Tancred stood alone, and 
 was quizzed for it, to which he good-naturedly submitted. 
 
 After this discussion, Granville and myself felt upon other matters, 
 and being not a little interested to understand the mysterious allu- 
 sions between him and Lady Hungerford the evening before, he 
 readily explained, nay seemed to wish to do so, in order to ask my 
 opinion. 
 
 It seems that in the morning visit which he paid to Berkeley 
 Square, he found the lady alone, except that she was occupied with 
 Pope and his characters of women, which immediately and natu- 
 rally produced a discussion of the subject. She appeared very in- 
 dignant with the poet, whom she accused of a total ignorance of the 
 sex, knowing nothing about ihem, she said, but what Patty Blount 
 and Lady Mary Wortley Montague ( neither of them the best au- 
 thority ) chose to tell him. 
 
 44 As if," said Lady Hungerford, 44 there ever was such a cha- 
 racter as Ghloe, of whom he inconsistently says, 
 
 4 With every pleasing, every prudent part, 
 Say what can Chloe want' — she wants a heart.' " 
 
 44 1, to try her," said Granville, 44 observed I thought it the com- 
 monest feature in the character of the sex — adding, it was lucky 
 for us — for, if she had a heart, woman would be so irresistible, 
 that no man could ever be his own master, but must crouch at her 
 feet, and be beaten like a spaniel." 
 
 44 Which you are too proud to do," observed the lady. 
 
 4 4 4 Not so,' replied I; 4 for if I really met with a heart which 
 could respond to mine — could a woman really feel any love but the 
 two sorts which Pope says absorb her, 
 
 " The love of pleasure or the love of sway," 
 
 no votary could feel so resigned or devoted to heaven's will, as I to 
 the heaven of her affection. 1 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 44 4 Very fine,' observed Lady Hungerlord (as I thought with a 
 distant air); 'but, according to you, then, this capable heart of 
 yours never met with one that was worthy of it.' 
 
 " 4 Rather,' replied I, 4 1 have always been loo little gifted to 
 inspire the feeling, without which I could never love $ especially 
 among beings whom the poet describes as so changeful, that they 
 "have no characters at all." This he does, you know, upon the 
 best authority — the cleverest of her sex — Lady Mary herself. Nay, 
 it is to this inconstancy that the satirical rogue ascribes half their 
 powers : — 
 
 " Ladies like variegated tulips shew, 
 'Tis to their chaages half their charms we owe." ' 
 
 44 ' I should be sorry,' said Lady Hungerford, still more gravely, 
 ' if this were your real opinion. I would never open my doors to 
 you (0 insult me again ; but I know it is not, and I should like ? 
 therefore, to know what it really is ' 
 
 44 ' Really, honestly, and frankly ?' asked I. 
 
 "'Yes.' 
 
 44 ' And you will promise not to be offended ? ' 
 44 4 Oest seloiiy answered she, and I thought she grew more 
 particular still. 
 
 " ' Why then,' said I, ' take it from an apostrophe of Segur, who 
 at least was sufficiently interested about these 44 Gynlhias of a mi- 
 nute." ' 
 
 1,4 4 Positively,' cried the lady, ' I will notadmil of French autho- 
 rity. I deny that Segur, any more than Pope, knew any thing 
 really about us.' 
 
 " ' Is this nothing,' asked I, ' or is it the truth ?' and I repeated 
 with animation, I believe, for I felt unusually bold : — 4 Assemblage 
 incomprehensible de vertus et de vices, de bonnes qualites et de 
 defauls, de courage et de faiblesse \ mais possedant au plus haul 
 degre Tart de tout embellir.' 
 
 '"Tolerably fair, that last,' observed the lady, seeing that I 
 paused, 'but I suppose something terrible is coming. 1 
 
 " I went on 4 Qui dit vous connaitre est un sot.' 
 
 "'Bad.' 
 
 " ' Qui vous croit est une dupe/ 
 " ' Worse.' 
 
 " ' Qui se livre a vous— — ' 
 
 k ' 'Shocking ! exclaimed my lady, half offended ; ' you need not 
 go. on • I would rather not hear any more abuse.' 
 
 " 'Abuse ! cried 1 ; 'hear me out : — Qui se livre a vous est heu- 
 reux.' 
 
 "Believe me," continued Granville, "when I had finished, all 
 
96 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 my boldness forsook me. I thought I had gone too far. I could 
 scarcely look at Lady Hungerford to ascertain, if I could, how she 
 took this critical quotation 5 and, in fact, having said (I thought 
 rather coldly) that the last line endeavoured to compensate for the 
 rest, she changed the subject, to which I did not dare return." 
 
 "This, then, is the 'last line,'" said I, " which she last night 
 allowed you to retain ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " Good 5 but did nothing else pass?" 
 
 E< Very little ; merely a common-place, such as — ' I suppose you 
 will be at Lord Castleton's to-night ? ' and I took my departure, 
 leaving her, I thought, more grave and distant towards me than ever 
 I remember." 
 
 "J am not so experienced as you," observed I, "but I should 
 not augur ill from this gravity ■ it at least shews there is not indiffe- 
 rence, which is the next step to emotion 5 and emotion once created, 
 may turn to love, as well as to haired 5 while a leaden indifference 
 is always fatal." 
 
 Granville stared, and at last exclaimed, " Admirably settled! But 
 where the devil did you get this knowledge? Not at Queen's \ not 
 from Fothergill, I am certain 5 nor from the Oxford damsels, I'll 
 answer for it. Yet these are all the sources you had upon such sub- 
 jects when I left you. But I forgot. Lady Hungerford herself has 
 taken you under her guidance, and perhaps has instructed you in 
 more secrets than that of the parfaitement bonne compagnie" 
 
 I thought my friend had here raised in himself some little hope 
 that I had made out something in his favour from his mistress, so I 
 undeceived him ; but it produced in myself the bold desire to do so 
 if I could, or at least, if possible, to sound her, though at a distance, 
 on his account 5 and the constant access which this gracious lady 
 still allowed me to her presence, I thought might afford an oppor- 
 tunity for it. 
 
 I say still allowed me, because, though, as my instructress in 
 the ways of the beau monde, she was pleased to say that I now 
 wanted very little tuition, I own I was so happy at school that 
 I by no means wished for holidays, or to take my degree-, and, 
 what with Lord Castleton's good opinion of me, what with her own 
 good-nature, and what, perhaps, was something, our constant talk, 
 more or less, of Granville, in our meetings, she by no means re- 
 scinded the liberty she had allowed me of waiting upon her. 
 
 At these visits, as I have said, Granville was always more or less 
 mentioned, and she would often talk of the firmness of his mind. 
 
 Pity it was, she one day said, that he was not his elder brother, 
 and then, though perhaps a little too old, he would be a charming 
 match for his pretty cousin, her darling Bertha. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 9: 
 
 At these words I grew embarrassed, particularly as she looked at 
 me so archly, and as I thought, so searchingly, that I could not help 
 thinking, though with no very precise idea of her intention, that she 
 had some inkling of the devotion I had formerly shewn, and wished 
 to discover whether, and how_/ar, it continued. 
 
 Ladies, whatever their rank, and with all their superiorities of 
 talent and genius, which make them seemingly above all common- 
 place feelings, are yet always women where a love tale is con- 
 cerned ; and Lady Hungerford could not have been in the same 
 house with the loquacious Mrs. Margaret without hearing some- 
 thing of the adventure with the poachers, and the consequent unfor- 
 tunate delirium. 
 
 I parried her speech as well as I could 5 and having been now, 
 for some time, allowed all the ease of a friend, I resolved to pursue 
 the subject of Granville, by saying, that I thought I could be 
 certain that such a match as she had alluded to would never take 
 place. 
 
 " How?" said Lady Hungerford, rather hurriedly; 44 you speak 
 as from authority. Do you know? Have you heard of any en^ 
 gagement? Do you think Miss Hastings has placed her affections 
 elsewhere?" 
 
 "No;" returned I, "but he has." 
 
 This was pretty bold 5 perhaps indiscreet in regard to Granville ; 
 yet it was for his sake I said it, for I wanted to discover whether it 
 would produce any, and what effect upon this high-bred, but still 
 unsophisticated lady. 
 
 Practised as she was> and firm in the government of her coun- 
 tenance, a transient gleam came over her features, and it was not 
 without an indication of, at least, curiosity, that she asked me the 
 ground of my opinion. 
 
 44 As a friend, much interested that he should be happy," said 
 she, " I wish to know." 
 
 She said this so naturally, that I was rather baffled, though I 
 thought I would still go on with my experiment, particularly 
 when she farther asked whether he had been captivated at home or 
 abroad. 
 
 44 Oh! " said I, 44 both 5 " but, roguishly looking at her, I added, 
 44 1 believe chiefly at Paris." 
 
 Here she was certainly off her guard, for she absolutely coloured, 
 and observed— 
 
 " I must not ask you to reveal secrets, but I think I know the 
 lady— the Countess Montalembert? " 
 
 44 No;" said I, with a boldness that astonished myself, 44 it was 
 a viscountess." 
 
 Whether I looked so significantly on saying this, that she dis* 
 11, 7 
 
08 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 covered what I meant, I know not, but with an almost affectation 
 of gaiety (certainly a gaiety not natural to her), she immediately 
 said, 
 
 "Well, well, I don't wish to know; and here we have been 
 both doing wrong; I, in prying into secrets I have no right to, 
 you, in betraying, if indeed you know them. I am afraid you are 
 a very false man, Mr. De Clifford, and I shall tell your friend not 
 to trust you. I am sorry, however, that poor Bertha has so little 
 chance. I suppose you will, as in friendship bound, inform her 
 of it." 
 
 If I had at all discomposed Lady Hungerford, she now had 
 her revenge ; for, seriously hurt by this allusion to a friendship 
 so long at an end, and feeling bitterly that I was banished for 
 ever from the confidence I was supposed to enjoy, I faltered rather 
 than said, 
 
 " Indeed, madam, though your supposition does me honour, it 
 is one I cannot pretend to. I have not even seen Miss Hastings 
 these two years; and but for your kind communication I should 
 never have dreamt I was remembered, having so little right to it, 
 by any of the family. 1 ' 
 
 My lip quivered as I said this ; all my courage, which had led 
 me to be almost impertinent, was annihilated, and my experiment 
 on Lady Hungerford reverberated on my own head. 
 
 Her real good-nature now came to my assistance, and she said, 
 with the kind consideration which belonged to her, 
 
 " Nay Mr. De Clifford, this must not be; I cannot permit your 
 humility, unaffected as I really believe it is, to make you suppose, 
 what it is even ungrateful in you to imagine — that your early 
 friends are so capricious or so unjust. Mr. Hastings himself, any 
 more than his dear daughter, is not a person to throw away his 
 opinions — favourable to day, lost to-morrow. I told you the first 
 moment I saw you, that they remembered you with interest, and 
 the letters I have received from Bertha, since I informed her of 
 our acquaintance, and your position with Lord Castleton, to say 
 nothing of your progress, would convince you that neither she nor 
 her father are such changeable beings as you fancy them." 
 
 I felt myself agitated to a still greater degree by this account, 
 and knew not how to look, when this kind, as well as accomplished 
 lady, thought it right to endeavour to put me more at my ease, 
 by telling me the extent of what she knew. 
 
 u Come," said she, u I see you are under constraint from doubts, 
 and perhaps fears, of what I do or do not know. I will tell you> 
 therefore, frankly, that I know all the night adventure with the 
 poachers, and all that passed in the delirium occasioned by your 
 consequent illness. I know, too, all your expressed opinions of 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 99 
 
 the possibility of loving without hope, and am in possession of 
 your pretty verses on that subject. What is more, I know all that 
 in your agitation escaped you in your last interview with Bertha, 
 which that feeling and just-minded girl told me, with tears in 
 her eyes. 
 
 "Tears! 11 cried I, in greater agitation than ever. " Tears! in 
 such an angel, from such a cause! " 
 
 u Yes, 11 said Lady Hungerford, " for the tears of benevolence 
 (and your emotion obliges me to tell you they were no more) will 
 easily be made to flow from a good, and particularly a youthful 
 heart. Now do not let this plunge you into the dreadful mistake of 
 supposing that this feeling of Miss Hastings proceeded from any 
 thing but what I have called it, benevolence. Nor, did I think 
 you like the common run of young men, a coxcomb, would I 
 tell you this, or more than this — that the lone of your last inter- 
 view with her convinced her that a delirium may often indicate 
 foregone conclusions, and though apparent madness, may be real 
 truth." 
 
 "And hence, no doubt, 11 said I, rather stiffly, "that a love 
 which I had not been able to conceal, and which it would be folly 
 to attempt to disguise from a penetration like your ladyship's, was 
 the cause of all that change of behaviour which I felt so cruelly 
 at the time, and the bitterness of which has continued in memory 
 ever since. 1 ' 
 
 I thought Lady Hungerford was a little affected at this; but 
 seeing the necessity for the most clear understanding on my part 
 of what she meant, and meant not, to convey, she assumed a 
 grave and impressive air, and wi(h something like solemnity said, 
 
 " I trust you are too just, and loo little egotistical, to mis- 
 construe what I said inlo more than what I really meant — a desire 
 to correct an error under which you seemed to be labouring— 
 that mine and your friends had in the least changed towards you. 
 Having never been more than a friend — it being impossible, even 
 if you were Lord De Clifford himself, that she could be more — 
 Berlha is so still : and when I described her keen regrets, I may 
 say her sorrow, at perceiving you labouring under a most un- 
 availing passion, which might end in your misery, I meant any 
 thing but to encourage you to think she could ever entertain it. 
 Believe me, who possess all her confidence, this is wholly out of 
 the question, were you even a prince of the blood. 11 
 
 This, as I thought unnecessary addition, made me shudder, and 
 I replied (moodily, and I fear proudly), 
 
 " Your ladyship need be under no such apprehension. I per- 
 fectly well know the distance between Miss Hastings and myself; 
 nor was it necessary to remind me of it : for, of the total absence 
 
100 
 
 DE CLIFFORD : 
 
 on her part of any thing like encouragement I have even been too 
 well convinced, to think that this distance can be overleapt." 
 
 "Honourably said, most distant Sir, and most lofty-minded 
 gentleman,*' replied my fair instructress; "and, this being so, I 
 feel perfectly safe in having made you this confidence. Do me the 
 justice, however, to believe, that it is for your own sake I have 
 spoken, and therefore, if I tell you that the bar against you is 
 insuperable, you ought to thank me. In return, I hope I need 
 not tell you that your secret with me is safe ; though, indeed, no 
 man need be ashamed of loving such a creature as Bertha. Time 
 and absence, however, and still more, perhaps, the usual remedy of 
 very young men — admiration of another— may do much for you. 
 For the latter, at least, there is abundant scope, at this brilliant 
 time of the year. 
 
 " By the way,"' added she, " I saw you rather occupied last night 
 with that very brilliant person, Miss Falconer, who, though this is 
 only her first season, has already turned the heads of half the town. 
 She has as much fortune, they say, as beauty, and her tournure, 
 you see, is perfect. Now, suppose you try a little experiment upon 
 yourself, and see whether this superb sultana (a very contrast to 
 Miss Has'.ings) may not cause some diversion in your feelings." 
 
 Though she said I his sportingly, and, as she afterwards allowed, 
 to see whether I could be diverted or not, I did not like Lady 
 Hungerford for this, and said perhaps somewhat resentfully, 
 
 " Your ladyship does well to laugh at my very impertinent 
 feelings, and has indeed said well, that these two ladies are a con- 
 trast to one another. Oh, how great a one ! " 
 
 " Be it so," returned Lady Hungerford; and (again to try me) 
 she observed that Miss Falconer, in the opinion of all judges, from 
 her singularly fine manners, taste, and elegance, would, she thought, 
 be preferred by everybody, to a girl brought up in the country, 
 however highly allied. 
 
 " That may be, madam," said I: "tut an illustration from your 
 favourite science of music shall be my answer. A simple but touch- 
 ing and pathetic melody, which thrills the heart, and perhaps fills 
 the eyes with tears, may for a time be eclipsed by an elaborate, 
 magnificent sinfonia, full of imposing and loarned accompaniments ; 
 and so a beautiful girl, decked only in the simple charms of a sweet 
 nature, may seem veiled for a time, when a court comes sweeping 
 by, in all the pomp of majesty and gold. But as the charm of (he 
 melody returns upon the sense, and is cherished long after the 
 scientific and imposing sinfonia is forgotten : so the beautiful daughter 
 of nature, I have supposed, renews and maintains her place in the 
 heart long after all the finery of the court has ceased to be re- 
 membered." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 101 
 
 " Upon my word, fair Sir," said Lady Hungerford, " there might 
 be a worse exposition, and I could pardon much imprudence to so 
 much elegance of fancy as well as constancy. Nor am I sorry to 
 have sounded you by what I said of a diversion, since it lets me 
 into the truth of what your friend Mr. Granville believed was once 
 a ruling passion, but he thought it had subsided. I grieve to think 
 his opinion was not well founded. But there must be an end to 
 imprudence, when it swells into madness; and though I dare say 
 you will hate me for telling you so, it is absolute madness to foster 
 this affection. The bar 1 have told you is insuperable — were you as 
 rich as you are well born, you could not succeed — the passion must 
 be conquered." 
 
 "Be assured, madam," replied I, somewhat moved, " it would 
 not be easy for me to hate you for any thing, much less for what, 
 I trust I am not too presumptuous in thinking proceeds from good 
 will towards me, however unworthy of it." 
 
 "Nay," returned my protectress (for I cannot help calling her 
 so), "do not disqualify yourself, but rather turn your qualifications 
 to account. Mr. Granville informed me he had once told you there 
 was more than one Miss Hastings in the world 5 and, much as I love 
 and admire her, I agree with him. I will not recur again to a diver- 
 sion to which you are properly superior, and to which I only 
 adverted as a trial, for which I ought to ask pardon. But there are 
 other objects, not less intense, more prudent, and even more 
 honourable in your position; I mean the pursuit of your ambition, 
 so well begun, and the study of the world in which you may be 
 hereafter conspicuous. These the indulgence of this secret passion 
 may cruelly thwart. How many thousands of young men would 
 give their little fingers to be where you are, at the expense, easy to 
 them, of eradicating even a stronger attachment than this! " 
 
 "Stronger! madam!" exclaimed I. " I am sorry you think so 
 meanly of me." 
 
 And seizing my hat, and with a deep sigh, I took my leave so 
 suddenly and unceremoniously that I found myself in the street 
 before Lady Hungerford could offer any thing in reply. And so 
 ended an experiment conceived and made to promote the happiness 
 of another, but which lamentably conduced to the deterioration of 
 my own. 
 
102 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IN ORDER TO RECOVER FROM MY RUINOUS ATTACHMENT I THROW MYSELF MORE AND 
 MORE UPON THE TOWN, IN THE REVIEW OF ITS DIFFERENT CHARACTERS. A DIN- 
 NER AT LORD CASTLETON'S, WHERE I MEET A GREAT CRITIC. — CHARACTER OF 
 MR. JOHN PARAGRAPH. 
 
 What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John ? 
 
 Shakspeake — 2 Henry IV. 
 
 The interview with Lady Hungerford, recorded in the last chap- 
 ter, did me no good, and I felt rightly served for endeavouring to 
 discover a lady's secret, when I had one of my own which I wished 
 to conceal, if possible, from myself;, for, from the thousand scenes 
 of another sort in which I was now engaged, I had begun to hope 
 that I was really independent of that absorbing feeling which had 
 tinged all my early years, with some pleasure indeed, but more 
 pain. 
 
 Tis true I was affected and pleased with the thought that I was so 
 kindly remembered as Lady Hungerford described 5 but. the very 
 non-concealment of that kindness, with no intimation of any thing 
 more, proved that I was nothing to Bertha. Had there been any 
 thing warmer, she would not have so frankly confessed her friend- 
 ship; she would have been afraid of herself. This I felt, from I 
 know not what sort of intuition : so far had I advanced without in- 
 struction in the knowledge of the heart. 
 
 I am ashamed to say how wayward I felt towards Lady Hunger- 
 ford after this last visit. Though I could not by any means make it 
 out, I wished to think myself unkindly used, and abstained from 
 repealing my calls for a week 5 nay, I excused myself from one of 
 her soirees; and when I met her unexpectedly at a third place, and 
 rather looked to be reproached for it, to my mortification I was 
 treated exactly with the same affability and ease as if I had shewn 
 my usual assiduities. 
 
 I was half angry at this no change, and, like Sir Peter in the play, 
 said to myself, 64 She may break my heart, bui she sha'nt keep her 
 temper." 
 
 Meantime, I thought the experiment I had made in regard to her 
 feeling for Granville had succeeded 5 and that the strong hint I had 
 given her of his devotion had far from displeased her. It is certain 
 she did any thing but keep her resolution of not speaking to him 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 103 
 
 again ; the " last line " seemed always the last thing remembered, 
 and was remembered with pleasure. 
 
 The effect was visible upon himself. All his agreeable qualities — 
 his talent — his tact, and good breeding shone out in double lustre, 
 and he wanted nothing but his embassy to enable him to undertake 
 a siege in form. 
 
 I confess I envied him; and in the midst of business, pleasure, 
 and dissipation, I became, as formerly, solitary and sad though 
 not, as formerly, fond of my chain, for I really wished to break it. 
 My friends thought me like Richard, when about to fight for his 
 kingdom, and noticed that 
 
 " I had not that alacrity of spirit, 
 And cheer of mind, that I was wont to have." 
 
 And yet there was nothing in Lady Hungerford's caution or 
 communication, that ought to have added to whatever uneasiness I 
 had before undergone. It was not new to me, that I was to have 
 no hope for Bertha. I had, indeed, thought I had settled that mat- 
 ter for ever, and had even been light of heart when I first came to 
 London. 
 
 Nor did the associations thrown around Lady Hungerford at all 
 sadden my recollections, or prevent my delight in her conversa- 
 tion. It was the intimation she gave that I was still so kindly re- 
 membered where it did me good to think myself forgotten, that 
 disturbed me. For by reviving tenderness (never indeed entirely 
 suppressed), it excited a tumult once more in my feelings, by no 
 means soothed by the accompanying assurance that those feelings 
 were vain. 
 
 I tried again to summon my pride to aid me against both Ber- 
 tha and her friend who had so lectured me. I did not understand, 
 much less like, the positive tone assumed, as it were expressly, by 
 Lady Hungerford on this occasion. In particular, I could not make 
 out, and was disposed to resent, the seemingly gratuitous assump- 
 tion, that were I Lord De Clifford himself, or even a prince of the 
 blood, I should not succeed. What right had Lady Hungerford to 
 assert this ? Why assert it, except unnecessarily to humble me? 
 
 I became downright angry. But I could not keep my anger long, 
 for my admiration of this charming person predominated over even 
 a sense of injury ; and as for Bertha, all pride fell before her, and 
 I felt that to her I was " pigeon-livered and lacked gall." 
 
 Luckily, at this time, a press of business in the state, and a press 
 of engagements in the world of fashion, came so far to my aid, that 
 I had little time to brood. Lord Castleton gave me employment 
 enough in the former, and the latter was greatly encouraged, on a 
 
104 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 good natural principle, as she told me herself, by Lady Hunger- 
 ford. I became what is called bien repandu. I wrote all the morn- 
 ing, or saw courtiers and applicants, and made precis for the king, 
 which he was pleased to approve, as he told Lord Castleton him- 
 self, of which, being one of the best judges in his own dominions, 
 f was not a little proud. 
 
 In the afternoon I rode in the park, amid a gay and increasing 
 throng of acquaintance of both sexes; many of them rising young 
 men, some actually risen; and the women of the most finished 
 tournure. 
 
 In these parlies Lady Hungerford and Granville, who constantly 
 attended her, were conspicuous, and by the consequence which 
 their protection gave me, made me appear in the world any thing 
 but a decayed gentleman. 
 
 As to themselves, the thing seemed decided in public opinion, 
 and they were given without reserve to each other. I was much 
 catechised upon it ; and though I could not answer, because I knew 
 nothing, it was taken as a proof of discretion, auguring a prudence 
 which would in the end assuredly lead to something great. 
 
 The opportunities of knowing the world were thus multiplied^ 
 and what amused me was, to observe the deference shewn me by 
 many whom I thought great men at Oxford, because of their horses 
 and large expenditure compared with my own (though perhaps the 
 whole of their fortune), but who in those days stood studiously 
 aloof from such little men as I. 
 
 These men formed a class which an observer of the world would 
 do well to note. They were the Mr. Wiggenses and Mr. Sprig- 
 ginses of life; sons of little merchants, or practitioners in the pro- 
 fessions, who had bred or intended to breed them to their own 
 vocations ; but leaving them small fortunes, from three to five thou- 
 sand pounds apiece, which sufficing to their immediate views, they 
 would not submit to either the restraint or what they thought the 
 disgrace of business, but resolved to burst forth men of fashion at 
 once. 
 
 This, as they imagined, consisted in being able to keep a good 
 horse, with perhaps (for it was not universal), a groom ; to ride re- 
 gularly in the ring, know every coach with a coronet, be a Bond 
 Street lounger (then a great town character), and lodge in its neigh- 
 bourhood. The richer ones frequented the coffee-houses there, and 
 sometimes even dined at them. These were at all proper times to 
 be seen at Tattersall's, and never missed Epsom. 
 
 But the happiness and dignity of these gentry were consummate, 
 if they could regularly attend the Opera of a Saturday night, where 
 one of them was a most amusing study — indeed perfectly unique ; 
 for. having a few acquaintances of his own of the higher sort, and. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 105 
 
 by dint of an apprenticeship to it of some years, having acquired a 
 knowledge of the names and persons of most of the people of rank, 
 he was to be seen and heard regularly echoing the announcement 
 of every carriage as it was called, generally accompanying it with 
 some remark regarding the motions of the owners. Thus, if Lady 
 D.'s carriage was vociferated, he wou4d loudly repeat it, with the 
 addition of "stops the way," if Lady E.'s, he would cry out, 
 "gone sometime; 1 ' if Lord F.'s, "gone to Brooks's with Lord 
 G.;" if Lady H.'s, " has not been here to-night." 
 
 Townsend (then a young minister of police) complained bitterly 
 of this person, for rivalling him, as he said, in his vocation*, and 
 once said, with his characteristic liberty of speech, meaning really 
 to compliment him, ''What an excellent police officer was spoilt, 
 Sir, when you were made a gentleman." The laugh occasioned by 
 this innuendo kept away the aspirant of fashion two whole nights. 
 
 What became of this useless order of beings, as they grew older, 
 I never could exactly make out. It is certain most of them disap- 
 peared, though some continued to be seen lounging on " the shady 
 side of Pall Mall " in summer, or expelling smoke from their cigars 
 in winter; neither advancing nor retrograding; the only alteration 
 being from youth to age. 
 
 Now and then one of them might contrive to make a comfort- 
 able marriage, and take his place among his sister dowagers at the 
 card-table ; but most passed their lives in useless, monotonous, and 
 irrespeclable celibacy : not put to shame by any notorious vice, but 
 total strangers to any active virtue. 
 
 Those whose annuities were of a smaller kind altogether disap- 
 peared, and were scattered about the world, glad to escape into the 
 colonies, or, if they had interest, into some public office, where I 
 have sometimes detected them, rather to their dismay. But again, 
 " Vogue la galere" 
 
 I could write a volume on the different characters I met with \ 
 some at the clubs, and some at the tables of the great, particularly 
 at Lord Castleton's, where, as his aide-de-camp (the title he gave 
 me), I had my regular place. The parlies were, as may be sup- 
 posed, chiefly political 5 but they admitted, from the taste and cha- 
 racter of the host, of a mixture of rank and conditions, from the 
 elite of the haute noblesse, to the untitled, but talented man of 
 genius, in letters, or the liberal arts. The conversation, therefore, 
 was often rich and interesting, and generally agreeable 5 nor, with 
 such a field for it, did I forget Lady Hungerford's advice, to endea- 
 vour to banish what it was madness to think of, in the pictures of 
 life thus presented to me. 
 
 At one of these dinners, composed of company such as i have 
 described, I was greatly amused, and edified too, by meeting a new 
 
106 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 sort of character, of whose very existence I had hitherto been 
 ignorant. -Granville, who was in general, from his knowledge of the 
 wits, men of letters, and critics of the time, entrusted by Lord 
 Castleton with the task of selecting his guests of this description, had 
 brought this person to the party, to all of whom (at least, those of a 
 higher degree) he seemed a perfect stranger. 
 
 Yet everybody had heard of the eminent critic, Mr. John Para- 
 graph 5 although nobody knew whlU he had been until he blazed 
 forth as one of the directors of the public taste, which he conde- 
 scended to guide in a periodical publication. Perhaps he had been, 
 like myself* a decayed gentleman 5 though, unlike myself, he had 
 been ten years on the town. Hence, on the strength of a consi- 
 derable portion of verjuice in his composition, and impenetrable 
 impudence in scattering it, whether in print or conversation, he 
 became a first-rate character in the walk he had chosen. 
 
 Mr. Paragraph was eminent for a natural slang, which passed, 
 with vulgar people, for wit, and with the weak and timid, for over- 
 powering ability. " Yet I have long," said Granville, who gave me 
 this account, " taken measure of his understanding and acquire- 
 ments, and even as what he pretends to be, a critic, have found 
 him below mediocrity 5 but, as man who has either the mind, man- 
 ners, or literature of a gentleman, he is not to be named. For the 
 fellow has not a feeling of liberality in his whole carcase ; not a 
 sentiment of poetry, a spark of imagination, or the commonest 
 knowledge of history, still less of the nature of man. Yet, having 
 bought a press, he sets up for a critic of all work — poetical, poli- 
 tical, historical, and ethical. He is a cormoranttor praise from his 
 miserable hacks, whom he governs with a rod of iron-, and, what 
 is more, he makes money by selling his praises to the weak and 
 vain — the would-be authors and orators. If among these there are 
 some above purchasing his puffs, he is able sometimes to force them 
 to buy off his abuse, which they are fools enough not to see rather 
 does them good than harm. 1 ' 
 
 "How comes it, however," said I, " that you produce such a 
 man? for I hear you have invited him to dine with Lord Castleton." 
 
 " Why, he is one of those persons, who, being free from all bur- 
 then of modesty, and revelling in their intrepidity of assurance, are 
 so far of use, in company, that they will not let people go to sleep. 
 I have, therefore, prevailed upon Lord Castleton, who has heard of, 
 but never yet saw him, to let me invite him, if only to shew the sort 
 of animal he is. You may be sure the invitation was accepted, for 
 he is a great tuft-hunter, as well as a great feeder. A turtle would 
 entice him anywhere, and for a plate of it he would even sell a com- 
 mendation of the worst book that ever was written. But turtle from 
 a lord, and that lord a minister, will elevate him to the third heaven 5 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 107 
 
 for it is certain that his good things, if he have any, depend upon 
 the good things on the table, and the flow of his wit upon the flow 
 of the claret. In short, in these respects, he is an illustration of the 
 description which Johnson gives of a third or fourth rale critic, 
 who finds he can boil his weekly pot better by abuse than by praise." 
 
 Granville added, moreover, that Paragraph was a most despotic 
 monarch in his way, and a bully among all minor publishers and 
 authors. 
 
 " In short," said he, " it is not easy to say whether vanity, ava- 
 rice, or impudence, are uppermost in his character." 
 
 Such was the redoubtable Mr. Paragraph, whom my friend had 
 persuaded Lord Castleton to invite to his dinner, with a view to 
 shew him and his company what they had often heard of, but per- 
 haps not seen — one of the self-elected rulers of public opinion. 
 
 This account of Mr. Paragraph raised both my curiosity and fear. 
 I, however, allayed the last by resolving not to encounter him, but 
 only to listen. 
 
 During the first course, everybody was so intent upon the busi- 
 ness for which they had assembled, that they gave one another 
 little opportunity for conversation 5 and I could see nothing in this 
 terrific person but a coarse gourmand ( such as Granville had 
 described him), in his practical demonstration of the excellence of 
 the turbot and turtle. Upon this he complimented my lord, as in- 
 deed he did upon every thing every minute ; not forgetting, amid a 
 thousand private merits, the wisdom of his public measures, upon 
 which he actually seemed disposed to pronounce a panegyric in 
 form, for the edification of the company, had not Lord Castleton 
 repressed it with disgust, though equivocally conveyed, by saying, 
 in a tone which might by any one else have been taken for irony, 
 that he never ventured to intrude such common-place business as 
 politics upon men of genius and imagination. 
 
 This produced a complacent bow from the censor, who took it 
 as a compliment, and after this instance of his tact, allowed the con- 
 versation to become general. 
 
 I thought, at first, that he felt a little subdued by the class of 
 company in which he now, for the first time, found himself; but 
 was soon undeceived, for he rallied into a sort of collision with Lord 
 Grandison, a nobleman of a certain age, and high breeding, made 
 still more dignified by great gravity of aspect. 
 
 This lord was lamenting to Lord Castleton the death, that day, 
 of a common friend of theirs, which he said had occasioned great 
 grief to his nieces, the ladies Devenish. 
 
 "Yes," said Paragraph, pertly, though not addressed by Lord 
 Grandison, "and we may be certain their grief, is genuine, for 
 
108 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 there is a new opera to-morrow, which they will not be able to 
 attend." 
 
 " You, of course, know these ladies?" observed Lord Grandison 
 in a dry tone, and with a look of distant dignity, yet of surprise, 
 which might have repelled a less bold person than the gallant Pa- 
 ragraph. 
 
 " Not I," said he, with great affectation of indifference ; " only 
 there is a new opera to-morrow, and I thought their grief would 
 therefore be but natural." 
 
 " Human nature is very much obliged to you," replied Lord 
 Grandison, with still greater gravity ; " but let me advise you, Sir, 
 when next you make an offensive observation among strangers, to 
 be more acquainted with the subject of it than you seem to be here. 
 I have known the Ladies Devenish from their cradles, and I must 
 be allowed to tell you their characters will by no means justify the 
 wit you have thrown away upon them." 
 
 This rebuke had so far effect, that the critic felt uneasy, and 
 looked round among the company for protection, — which, not 
 finding, he absolutely seemed disconcerted, and stammered out 
 something like an excuse $ which Lord Grandison seeming to ac- 
 cept, by an inclination of his head, the fellow instantly recovered 
 his familiarity, and said, flippantly, 
 
 u I trust your lordship will not bear malice, and, in proof of it, 
 will let us take a glass of wine together." 
 
 Lord Grandison immediately poured out some wine, and inter- 
 changing smiles with Lord Castleton, of indescribable contempt, 
 but which ought to have sunk our censor to the earth, coolly drank 
 off his glass. 
 
 A rather awkward pause ensued, and Paragraph was again silent 
 for several Biinutes, but revived on Granville's mentioning a young 
 author who had just published a poem, but which he was modest 
 enough to say himself he was afraid would not be read. 
 
 Paragraph, here feeling in his element, exclaimed, " He may be 
 much more afraid if it is." 
 
 You have read the poem, then?" said Lord Castleton. 
 
 " No," cried he, " but I have reviewed it. Ha, ha, ha !" 
 
 u What astonishing talents you gentlemen of the press must 
 have," observed Lord Castleton. " Intuition itself is nothing to 
 you. No wonder poor authors and ministers are so kept in order 
 by you." 
 
 Paragraph again bowed; but looking round, and finding, by a 
 sort of smile, that the company look the thing differently from him- 
 self,. he actually shewed symptoms of distress. 
 
 As for me, in my simplicity, I wondered at a state of society 
 which could seem to admit such a person to its honours. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 109 
 
 Granville told me afterwards he doubted the fact, that he had 
 reviewed a book without reading, or at least looking at it 5 but 
 though it compromised his integrity, the assertion sounded epi- 
 grammatic, and among his literary dependents would have cer- 
 tainly been thought witty. 
 
 Paragraph's non-success here delivered us again from him for a 
 few minutes more, and he seemed under some constraint, on the 
 conversation becoming general, and nobody speaking to him 5 for 
 even LordCastleton, with all his politeness, had now neglected him. 
 Rallying, however, and addressing Granville, he observed, 
 
 44 I saw you last night at the great Lady Hungerford's assembly.' 1 
 
 "Yes, 11 replied Granville, who seldom spared him, "and I 
 4 wondered how the devil you got there.' " 
 
 "0!" returned he, "leave me alone for getting any where I 
 like. But, upon my word," added he, in an authoritative tone, 
 44 considering Lady Hungerford's reputation, I was sadly disap- 
 pointed.'' 
 
 " How so?" asked Lord Castleton, with curiosity. 
 
 " Why, I own," replied Paragraph, 44 it was far from the gen- 
 teel thing I expected. The rooms and the music were well enough, 
 but the company, with a few exceplions, were absolute quizzes. 
 There is indeed an article in this morning's JVorld\ wondering 
 whether money was taken at the door for shewing them." 
 
 M Written by yourself, no doubt," said Granville. 
 
 44 That's neither here nor there," answered the director of public 
 taste \ looking, however, very conscious. 
 
 44 You do my niece a great deal of honour," said Lord Castleton, 
 with a bow of ambiguity. 
 
 44 Your niece, my lord! Good heavens! Lady Hungerford your 
 niece ! What a mistake. Upon my soul I did not intend it, indeed 
 
 could not have known it. I am sure your lordship that is, I beg 
 
 pardon; I assure you it shall all be set to rights immediately." 
 
 44 Not the least harm's done," said Lord Castleton with great 
 composure-, 44 and Lady Hungerford is so benevolent, that if to 
 abuse her and her parties every day will do you or your paper any 
 good, or raise your reputation as the director of public opinion, 
 and above all, of public taste, I will answer for it she will give you 
 carte blanche j so make yourself easy." 
 
 As considerable mirth ensued upon this, Paragraph did not know 
 how to lake it 5 nor whether it emanated from great good-nature, 
 or great contempt. For the first he bowed 5 from fear of the last, he 
 reddened 5 and at length, receiving no relief, applied to Granville 
 for help, exclaiming, 
 
 ' Then ihe most fashionable morning paper, 
 
110 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 44 My dear Granville, I am sure you will answer for it, that I 
 could not mean the least disrespect to his lordship or Lady Hun- 
 gerford, only — ■ — I really don't know how to apologize — ■ — but, 
 God bless my soul, how late it is." 
 
 And (the pendule just then striking eleven) he rushed out of the 
 room, his ears regaled all the way through the hall, by the hearty 
 laughs of those he left behind. 
 
 "I trust," said Lord Grandison, " the lesson this poor man has 
 received will do him good." 
 
 44 1 doubt it," observed Lord Castleton, 44 from Granville's ac- 
 count of him 5 for to Granville we owe the honour he has done us 
 to-day." 
 
 44 Wait till his next paper comes out," said Granville, 44 before 
 we pronounce." 
 
 The paper did come out, with a long leading article on the mi- 
 serable slate of English society, from the unbearable insolence of 
 the aristocracy, particularly of those in office, and the total want of 
 taste, elegance, and manners, in the ladies who pretend to call 
 themselves women of fashion. 
 
 When we broke up, I said to Granville, who took me home, 
 
 44 How I envy you men of the town your opportunities for know- 
 ledge. Here, in my innocence, I have been for years thinking a 
 newspaper critic a sort of a literary god, or at least a sage and pro- 
 found judge, whom all the world are bound to reverence. Can this 
 be a specimen of them?" 
 
 44 Certainly not," said Granville 44 for you see he is of an infe- 
 rior class, who make up in impudence what they want in sense, 
 and he shewed himself off accordingly, as an ass in fine trappings. 
 There are, luckily, many totally opposite to him — real scholars, 
 and real gentlemen, whom it is both pleasure and advantage to 
 know, and whose manners are far different from those of this slimy 
 caterpillar, who bedaubs every thing he crawls over. There are, 
 however, too many like him in the lower classes of the press, and 
 to study the character of one of these critics of what we call the 
 shop, would give you both amusement and useful knowledge." 
 
 44 1 have heard something of it from Mr. Manners, and have 
 been shocked with it," returned I. 44 1 should be glad, however, 
 to be instructed in what seems such a mystery." 
 
 44 Possibly I may help you," said Granville, 44 by introducing 
 you to an old fellow-gownsman of mine, with whom I was at Tri- 
 nity, before I was of All Souls, and who called upon me the other 
 day. His profession has been that of a critic for these last ten years ; 
 but I fear he is much the worse for wear. He can, however, tell 
 much of the prison-house if he pleases." 
 
 44 1 should like to know him," said I. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I HAVE A DISCOURSE WITH GRANVILLE ON THE SYSTEM OF TRADING CRITICISM. — 
 PICTURE OF A DISTRESSED MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 What would'st write of me, if thou should'st praise me? 
 Oh, gentle lady, do not put me to't, for I am nothing if not critical. 
 
 Sh akspe are.— Oz hello. 
 
 The next day, eager lo solve some of Ihe difficulties as to his 
 craft, occasioned by the meeting with Paragraph, I called upon 
 Granville to renew the subject, and to ask him to introduce me to 
 the friend who, he thought, could so enlighten me. He himself, 
 however, had powers and experience to do so, without aid, as will 
 presently be seen. As to the introduction, he said he was very 
 willing to effect it, if I would make such a journey as to Fleet- 
 street ; but that his friend lived in such a hole, he feared I should 
 not like it. 
 
 Upon inspecting his address, it proved lo be Wine Office Court, 
 Fleet-street. 
 
 ''Come," said I, "if the great Johnson did not disdain such a 
 neighbourhood, and if the amiable, elegant Goldsmith lived in 
 Fleet-market itself, do not let us be too nice in visiting a man of 
 merit, only because he is lodged like them." 
 
 It was settled, therefore, that we should proceed to Wine Office 
 Court ; but first, by way of proper introduction, Granville said he 
 would tell me something of his friend's history. 
 
 His name was Graves. He had been educated and distinguished 
 as a classic at Rugby. His father, a country apothecary, could have 
 well provided for him in his own line, but he would not relinquish 
 Homer for Galen in short, he hated the shop 5 so he came lo 
 Trinity College with a prodigious quantity of Greek and Latin, and 
 a total ignorance of the world. Here he was treated as a quiz, as he 
 almost deserved, in every thing but books ; yet so mild and unoffend- 
 ing was he, that nobody could use him ill, and the tutors and fellows 
 all gave him respect for his scholarship. In particular, one of the 
 fellows, the famous wit, poet, and punster of the University, the 
 
 Rev. T« W , took him by the hand 5 so that, when his father 
 
 died, which he did just after he had taken his degree, leaving 
 
 scarcely bread to his mother, and none at all to himself, Mr. W 
 
 interested himself about his provision, and, as the college pro- 
 
112 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 spects were closed upon him from not being on the foundation, he 
 advised him, on the strength of his book-knowledge, to seek it in 
 London. 
 
 For this purpose, he gave him a recommendation for employ- 
 ment to a very great personage; indeed, the supposed sovereign 
 of literature and criticism of that time, and who, if he had not the 
 talent of his prototype, Smollet, had all his moroseness, and a self- 
 sufficiency almost equal to Smollett's pride. His patron added to 
 this a not inconsiderable loan, which the honest fellow afterwards 
 repaid. 
 
 " His reception, or rather non-reception, by Mr. Spleenwort, 
 at that lime the king of the critical press, was so remarkable, and 
 will give you," said Granville, "such an insight into the, character 
 of some of these guides of the public taste, that I cannot do better 
 than relate it, as he related it to me. 
 
 "First, agreeably to what he had been told, that Mr. Spleenwort 
 exacted the utmost of the ceremonial between those who seek, and 
 those who distribute employment, Graves thought it most respect- 
 ful to inclose his letter of introduction in a sort of complimentary 
 note, requesting an interview. 
 
 44 ' Had Spleenwort,' said Graves, ' been first Lord of the Trea- 
 sury, I could not have been more humble \ or if I had been a 
 porter in his hall, the First Lord would not have been so much the 
 reverse/ 
 
 " Graves waited a whole week, under a total silence, when he 
 ventured to remind the great man of his first note, by a second, 
 informing him that he only wailed in town to know his pleasure. 
 
 u To this, after a few days' more of delay Spleenwort condes- 
 cended to reply, but not in his own hand; and the letter," said 
 Granville, "is such a curiosity, that Graves, having made me a 
 present of it, 1 have looked it out for you." 
 
 Here he took it out of a cabinet, and I read as follows : — 
 
 "Sir— I am really so oppressed by the numerous applications 
 from literary gentlemen of Oxford and Cambridge, and the Scotch 
 Universities (indeed, from all parts of the world), that it is impos- 
 sible to say when I can see you, or whether I can see you at all. 
 I am even obliged to make use of my chief clerk's hand to acknow- 
 ledge Mr. W — — 's letter. I have great respect for that gentleman's 
 own abilities ; but I cannot conceal from you that I have so often 
 been disappointed in the assistants whom he has recommended, that 
 I am forced to be very chary in my selection of them. Most of them, 
 however well intentioned, or versed in book knowledge, have no 
 knowledge of the world, still less of business, and of the principles 
 which necessarily govern the directors of the critical press they are 
 totally ignorant. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 113 
 
 " Mr. W — 's eulogy of you is strong, and I have no doubt you 
 deserve all he has said of your temper, learning, candour, 
 fairness, and impartiality ; but, to be plain with you, temper, 
 impartiality, learning, and all that, though good in themselves, 
 are not only common among young men, but are not exactly what 
 we most look to, in a widely-circulated periodical like ours. I, 
 therefore, by no means wish you to remain in town, to wait the 
 lime when I can see you ; but if you are in the way, and will take 
 the chance of my being at leisure some day next week, I will be 
 glad {should I be so) to enter into your qualifications, terms, etc., 
 etc. Meantime, I remain, Sir, 
 
 " Yours, etc., etc., 
 
 "Solomon Spleen wort." 
 
 I was petrified with the insolence of this letter, but particularly 
 with the passage which did not blush to say, that the qualities of 
 temper and impartiality were not exactly those that suited a critic. 
 
 " You see he was at least honest," said Granville. 
 
 " Honest in avowing dishonesty," replied I ; "but can it be, that 
 a critic must, or can, discard these sacred qualities?" 
 
 "You are most terribly green," returned my friend, "if you 
 suppose that many can not, or even that they can prosper if they 
 do not/' 
 
 " Extraordinary ! " cried I. 
 
 "Not at all," said Granville. " For as long as slander, or the 
 pulling down of a party, or a great reputation, even at the ex- 
 pense, now and then, of a good fat lie — as long as this will insure 
 more readers than the milk-and-water virtue of being just, so long 
 will this system prevail, and so long will this most puissant Spleen- 
 wort take the sale of his strictures as a proof that he is the sovereign 
 power of criticism of the day, and then " 
 
 "What then ?" 
 
 " He will, like 
 
 4 Jove in his chair, 
 Of the press Lord Mayor, 
 With his nods, 
 Men and gods 
 Keep in awe.' " 
 
 " You have described," said I, "a wonderful animal, of which 
 I had no idea; and, from your account, he must have many re- 
 quisites to complete so redoubtable a character. Great learning, of 
 course?" 
 
 "The appearance of it will do," answered Granville, " provided 
 it be disguised under a certain set of phrases, which have been 
 ii. 8 
 
114 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 justly called the cant of criticism, and are grown so mechanical 
 that the lowest dabblers brandish them with dexterity $ provided 
 also the proper self-sufficiency, and contempt for those Ihey attack, 
 are always preserved. If once modesty and candour are allowed to 
 mingle in such a critic as Spleenwort or Paragraph, there is an end 
 of him " 
 
 "Learning, then," said I, " according to you, will do little." 
 "Not without other qualifications, denoting, indeed, very high 
 gifts of mind." 
 
 " Will you name those gifts?" said I. 
 
 "Some of them," returned he, "are even heroic. For, in the 
 first place, a true critic of the character we are discussing ( for I 
 speak only of the dross, not the gold of the class) — he who writes 
 for the shop, with a view to sell his wares—must be able to bluster, 
 and bully, and call names » and yet be so thick-skinned himself, as 
 fo rise superior to a sense of shame, or even of insult, if he meet 
 the same treatment in return. This, you will allow, is great mental 
 courage." 
 
 " Great indeed," said I. 
 
 " Next, he must be able to abuse the person, birth, and private 
 life of his victim, without caring whether what he says be true or 
 false; and if its falsehood be demonstrated, he must hold such a 
 liberty as defending a man's self in sovereign contempt ; or if he 
 does not choose to be silent, he must write another paper, and 
 abuse the presumptuous blockhead ten times more than at first. 
 This you will also allow is heroic." 
 
 "You paint," said I, "a man without a heart/' 
 
 "You have hit it exactly," returned Granville; "a trading 
 critic is, and must be, without a heart. But we have forgot poor 
 Graves all this while." 
 
 " True," said I, " and I am anxious to know how he succeeded 
 finally with Mr. Spleenwort." 
 
 "Why, he had no success at all 5 for, under all his meekness and 
 simplicity, his pride would not permit him to dance attendance a 
 single moment longer on Sir Oracle. But the alternative was un- 
 fortunate for this neglected son of literature; for it produced so 
 much distress to his mind, from the affronts he was forced to sus- 
 tain, and to his body, from its depriving him even of sustenance, 
 that he applied to me to obtain a clerkship in a public office. Yet 
 so modest is his character, and so few his wants, that when not 
 actually without a dinner, he is not unhappy, as long as he can 
 loiter at what he calls his home, in his dressing-gown, unbuttoned 
 and ungartered, with his book and his inkstand." 
 
 This colloquy over, we proceeded to Wine Office Court, which 
 we entered through a low and dirty passage, and beheld a gloom, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 115 
 
 and felt a closeness which formed a lamentable contrast to the light 
 and cheerful airiness of the quarter we had left. 
 
 The court was none of the cleanest, and the house we entered, 
 where Mr. Graves was a lodger up two pair of stairs, was certainly 
 not wanting in the obsoleti sordibus teed. The door, a pannel of 
 which was split, was opened by the landlady, whose appearance, 
 however, did not prove that either air or water was absolutely ne- 
 cessary to make a person rubicund and fat. 
 
 Upon our asking whether Mr. Graves was at home, "There," 
 said she (pointing up a crazy staircase), " you will find him as high 
 as you can go." 
 
 I blessed myself, when I recollected what I had once thought of 
 as a pleasant profession, and how forcibly Manners put it to flight 
 by a picture which here seemed about to be realized. 
 
 On ascending to the second story, we knocked at a door, which 
 had certainly once been painted. The answer, "Come in," brought 
 us to the sanctum of our man of letters. 
 
 He was, as Granville had described him, in his slate of happi- 
 ness—that is, in a loose dressing-gown, seemingly unacquainted 
 with any laundress, leaning back in an arm-chair, so rickety, that 
 it made us tremble for his safety. His legs were stretched aloft over 
 a table, on which were several books, and also a plate, with the 
 beaux restes of some bread and cheese, an empty egg-shell, and 
 as empty a porter pot. 
 
 Poor Graves started up dismayed, and full of blushes, at being 
 thus surprised. 
 
 " I never thought, or expected, or hoped," said he to Granville, 
 stammering, " that you would take the trouble of coming so far to 
 return my visit, and I only left my address in case you should have 
 occasion to write to me." 
 
 Then looking at me inquiringly, I was introduced to him as Lord 
 Castlelon's secretary, which brought an evident blush into his cheek, 
 particularly when Granville added, I was his good friend, and he 
 had communicated his views to me. 
 
 This, I believe, made the good gentleman (happily for himself, 
 of a sanguine temper) think the thing was done ; for he became on 
 the alert, begged us to sit down, and would have offered us chairs 
 if he had had them. 
 
 There was indeed a window-seat-, but as that also formed a locker 
 for coals, which lay in scattered fragments on the cover, it could 
 not be used. After a little conversation, which, therefore, took place 
 standing, Granville told him that he wondered, with his attainments, 
 that a poor clerkship would content him. 
 
 " You will be a mere piece of mechanism," said Granville 5 " a 
 slave." 
 
 • 
 
116 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 "I am both already," replied Graves, with a sigh; " and my 
 servitude, being of the mind as well as the fingers, is far worse than 
 the same quill-driving would be with the will free. Take the last 
 specimen of what I am." 
 
 At this, opening his table-drawer, he pulled out a letter from the 
 editor of one of the weekly papers who employed him, and which 
 ran thus : — ■ 
 
 6 'Mr. Graves, — I am sorry to say that you have again trans- 
 gressed the line to which I have confined you. You have praised 
 instead of condemned a work, so highly ministerial, and, what is 
 worse, so able, that, if this goes on, my paper will be ruined. If. 
 you choose to set up for yourself, well and good • but in that case, 
 I have no farther occasion for your services. 
 
 " I am your humble servant, 
 
 "Simon Sotjrkrout." 
 
 "Affronting enough," said Granville. "But had he then con- 
 fined you to a particular line, and did you go from your agreement ?" 
 
 " Quite the contrary," said Graves,- " for I would not be bound, 
 and the consequence was, that as I was paid by the piece for the 
 works he should send, knowing my turn, he seldom sent me any ; 
 and you may therefore judge of the insolence of such a note." 
 
 " God keep me from such petty tyrants!" cried Granville; "and 
 you, my friend, from such thraldom. We must try what can be 
 done for you." 
 
 At this we took our leave, and I left him with a melancholy feel- 
 ing that such things could be, from which I did not recover during 
 all the way back to Granville's lodgings. 
 
 When there, I broke out into a long jeremiad, that such miseries 
 (which till now I had never witnessed) could be allowed to belong to 
 the republic of letters. 
 
 "You have miscalled it republic," said Granville; "at least if a 
 republic mean an assemblage of freemen; — for never was such a 
 set of tyrants as some of these self-installed usurpers ; who, if indeed 
 a republic, claim to be the perpetual dictators of it/' 
 
 "You describe, however," said I, " persons of very superior 
 powers, and who, I suppose, are unrivalled for taste, and irresis- 
 tible in their judgments; acquainted with all ancient and modern 
 lore; versed in all sciences, and all arts." 
 
 " The arts of humbug and the science of abuse, if you will," re- 
 plied Granville, " but no other. Recollect, however, I speak but 
 of some editors, and not at all of those distinguished persons, both 
 in station and knowledge, who lend criticism their able assistance ; 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 117 
 
 themselves ( many of them ) approved authors in prose and verse, 
 poets, historians, and divines." * 
 
 " You allow, then," said I, 44 that there are, as there ought to 
 be, judges in literature, as there are in law?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly," replied Granville " it is good for authors them- 
 selves, as well as for literature, that their faults should be pointed 
 out. But as the judge in law pronounces sentence with dignity, and 
 can never be personal without lowering his character, so the judge 
 of authors can never call names without forfeiting his judicial 
 function. He then becomes a mere thrower of dirt, and liable, as 
 well as deserving, to be pelted in return." 
 
 44 Nothing more just," said I. 44 But you talk of it, as if throw- 
 ing dirt were part of a system." 
 
 44 Judge for yourself," said he; " for having, as you know, my- 
 self been an amateur reviewer, I have sometimes been let behind 
 the scenes, and once made a curious discovery of crypt secrets." 
 
 44 Where, and when?" asked I. 
 
 44 The time, not long ago 5 the place, the back-parlour of that 
 very Sourkrout who used poor Graves so ill. Though then a great 
 ally, he has since quarrelled with me for not getting his son a place, 
 which he thought I could do, and as a natural consequence, abuses 
 me now thick and threefold. I ought not, however, to complain, 
 for his abuse was far less injurious to me than his praise. 
 
 4 4 4 1 never injured you,' said he to me one day. 
 
 4 4 4 Yes, you did,' replied I, 4 for, you spoke well of me.' 
 
 44 This increased our breach." 
 
 44 Which originally began because you could not get his son a 
 place?" 
 
 44 Exactly so 5 but the best is, he was most displeased because I 
 treated his criticism with contempt 5 for I shewed no resentment. 
 4 1 thought you would not speak to me,' said he, 4 after that blow 
 of mine, last week.' 
 
 4t 4 1 was not aware of it,' returned I. 
 
 4 4 4 The devil you were'nt,' replied he. 4 Yet it was a pretty 
 sharp one.' 
 
 4 4 4 A blow must hurt, or do some damage, to cause resentment,' 
 said I, 4 so you are safe.' Mr. Sourkrout at this walked off, and has 
 never spoken to me since. " 
 
 44 But your discovery?" said I. 
 
 u It was this. In the days of our friendship, boasting of the per- 
 fection to which he had brought the art of periodical criticism, so 
 as to insure the rapidity so necessary for the shop, he one day 
 shewed me a common-place book, drawn up by himself to facilitate 
 it. In this was an article entitled Epithets, composed of two co- 
 lumns, favourable and unfavourable. The first had very little 
 
118 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 belonging to it ; but the other was such a volume of Billingsgate, 
 as almost put me to flight. There were ranged in order, under the 
 head of Epithets, 6 fool, dolt, boeotian, worm, spider, carrion, — 
 ravings, brayings, slaver — mendacious, mare's nest, pickthank, 
 toad-eater, lickspittle.' 
 
 "This you would think enough; but these were single epi- 
 thets. There were, therefore, compounds, or a kind of half-sen- 
 tences, as 6 insane and silly being ; bloated mass of self-conceit 5 
 absurdity and insolence ; pitiful piece of puling • consummate ar- 
 rogance ; debility of understanding, and feebleness of genius ; abo- 
 minable egotism and dogmatism 1 ." 
 
 "This was for any persons who presumed to laugh at Mr. 
 Sourkrout, of whom, to his astonishment, there were not a few. 
 
 V Then came whole sentences, ready cut and dried. 4 No know- 
 ledge of facts; style below mediocrity ; dull details ; not a spark of 
 enlightened thought ; totally ignorant of the spirit of the age 5 behind 
 it by at least a hundred years." 
 
 " This was for historical writers. 
 
 " Then followed 'bigot, zealot, reverend blockhead, inquisitor, 
 burnings in Smithfleld, intolerance, ignorance, those old women the 
 Fathers : dreams, hypocrisy, mammon of bishops in short, odium 
 theologicum in all its details. 
 
 " This was for divines. 
 
 " Then again, ' Incapable of drawing a character ; has seen no 
 life, and not able to describe it if he had *, fails in his heroines ; has 
 no knowledge of the heart, like Richardson •, of manners , like Field- 
 ing of pathos, like Sterne ; or of the world at large, like Le Sage.' 
 
 "This for the novelists. 
 
 "There were also some general maxims in the form of memo- 
 randums, very useful as a key, and also to prevent getting into 
 scrapes. For example : 
 
 " Mem. 1st.—' If the author not patronized by our shop, or not 
 of our party in politics or religion, should the work be favoured by 
 the town, and too good to pull to pieces, find what fault you can with 
 small things, confine yourself to generals, and leave out all the 
 chief scenes and characters." 
 
 " Mem. 2nd. — ' If you criticize a particular word, always look 
 into Johnson first, for fear you should be wrong 5 but if, for want of 
 this, you should be proved guilty of ignorance yourself, never re- 
 tract and if in any of your assertions you are convicted of a lie, 
 
 1 You may doubt, reader, but in this polite age, all these epithets are to be found in 
 one or other of the daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly literary press. Yet these are 
 from the pens of scholars and the liberally educated. No doubt, as the writers are men 
 who think they have the learning of Scaliger, they would prove it by imitating his temper 
 and elegance. " Stercus diaboli" and " lutum stercore maceration," were some of his 
 phrases towards those he attacked. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 119 
 
 repeat it, and you are safe. Besides, nobody knows who you are, so 
 you fight comfortably behind a wall.' 
 
 44 Mem. 3rd.—' If you write against a critic of another concern, 
 remember he has no resources, no independence of his own, but is 
 a bookseller's hack 5 a venal scribe \ a tool, et ccetera. If against a 
 lawyer, be sure to quote Cicero, 4 leguleius, prceco actionum, 
 cantor formul arum, anceps syllabarum $ and give a proper 
 sprinkling of pettifogger, special pleader, Old Bailey counsel, sharp 
 practice, and the like. 1 " 
 
 44 If all this be correct," observed I, 44 it is systematic with a ven- 
 geance. 1 ' 
 
 44 Yes," replied Granville ; 44 and so far do they carry it, that once 
 being in Sourkrout's parlour, one of his writers came in ? in a hurry, 
 with his pen behind his ear, evidently big with composition. Taking 
 me perhaps for a brother journeyman, and going doggedly on with 
 his work, he asked abruptly whether Mr. Fairchild, whose book 
 was to be cut up, was thick or thin? 
 
 " 4 O, very thin,' replied Sourkroul, laughing. 
 
 44 4 That's enough,' said the scribe, and immediately disappeared. 
 I was completely lost at this $ till, upon questioning him, Sourkrout 
 informed me that thick or thin alluded to the skin of the author, 
 which it was necessary to know, because the personal notice of him 
 was to be manufactured accordingly. £ For there are some of these 
 fellows,' said Sourkrout, 4 who are as tough as alligators • others 
 as soft as wool-packs. You may fire shot at the one, and not pene- 
 trate 5 or beat the other with a club, and he will shrink, but always 
 puffs out again as much as before. You may as well beat a carpet. 1 
 
 44 1 think," concluded Granville, 44 1 have now let you sufficiently 
 into the nature of some, at least, of these guiders of the public taste, 
 who have the curse of Ishmael upon them 5 for their hand is against 
 every man, and every man's hand against them. Like chimney- 
 sweepers, too, the more dirt they rake together, the more happy 
 they are." 
 
 44 A charming lesson," said I, 44 by which, if ever I turn author, 
 I hope to profit. But are all of this description?" 
 
 44 God forbid," replied he ; 44 for I could name, and have intro- 
 duced you to several whose candour and good manners are equal to 
 their abilities." 
 
 44 But is there no chastising such nuisances?" asked I. 
 
 44 Yes ; for an illiberal critic is always as thin-skinned as Mr. Fair- 
 child himself. Flog him, therefore, with his own rod — that is, re- 
 view his review — and he will whine like a hyaena, or squeak like a 
 pig 5 particularly if he be an author himself, and you review him 
 in your turn. No one is then so sore 5 not Sir Fretful himself ; and 
 he will go whining about the town, wondering what can have oc- 
 
120 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 casioned him so many enemies. This, however, is rare, because 
 he generally conceals his identity under the royal term we, while 
 the honest author is forced, for the most part, to present himself in 
 puris naturalibus 1 . ". 
 
 All this astonished me. I owned my notion both of the character 
 and consequence of a critic was incorrect, and was no longer sur- 
 prised at the sort of subdued, but ill-concealed hatred which we see 
 entertained towards some of these self-elected censors in society, 
 over which, whenever they appear, they seem to throw a wet 
 blanket. 
 
 " You, therefore," said Granville, " ought to feel yourself the 
 more fortunate in finding, from those to whom I have introduced 
 you, that there can be critics who are not slanderous, and who 
 may be judges of literature without ceasing to be gentlemen." 
 
 " Those you allude to," said I, " are undoubtedly of that sort : 
 
 Mr. , for example, seems to justify the account of rational and 
 
 just criticism given by Pope : 
 
 4 The generous critic fann'd the poet's fire, 
 And taught the world with reason to admire ; 
 Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid proved, 
 To dress her charms, and make her more beloved.' " 
 
 " Good," observed Granville. u But even Pope says that many 
 of these critics were soon corrupted ; and you should have gone on 
 with your quotation : 
 
 ' But following wits from that intention stray'd, 
 Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid; 
 Against the poets their own arms they turn'd — 
 Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.' " 
 
 u But why hate? " asked I. u That is the question I should like 
 to have solved." 
 
 " It is solvable," said Granville, " by the one single word Con- 
 temporary. People in general do not hate the dead 5 nor even the 
 living, when removed from the sphere of rivalry or adverse interest. 
 Criticism, then, is prompted by a real love and taste for literature, 
 and a real desire to promote its interests. At any rate, the critics 
 have no wish to exhibit any one but the author. A modern re- 
 viewer, of the character we have been investigating, whatever his 
 
 1 See the subject of anonymous criticism ably and pungently treated by Sir E. L. Bul- 
 wer, in his England and the English, Book IV. 
 
 " There are only two classes of men," says this observing essayist, «* to whom the 
 anonymous is really desirable. The perfidious gentleman, who fears to be cut by the 
 friend he injures (to which it might have added, who fears for his own works j, and the 
 lying blackguard, who dreads to be horsewhipt by the man he maligns." 
 
 Pity that Sir Edward is able to support the first part of this observation by the example 
 of a highly-gifled nobleman, one of whose best compositions, he says, was discovered in 
 a review to be a most truculent attack upon his intimate companion. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 121 
 
 taste for literature, is chiefly swayed by his personal feeling in re- 
 gard to the writer 5 the interest he chiefly espouses is that of the 
 shop; and the person he most wishes to exhibit is — himself \" 
 
 These observations of Granville, the result of much experience, 
 as well as natural sagacity, to say nothing of an enviable sang- 
 froid, which enabled him to judge without passion the most pas- 
 sionate set of people in the world, did me a great deal of good 5 or 
 rather would have done it, had I continued inclined to turn either 
 author or critic. In fact, however, I had not time for either 5 for 
 all reading and writing was absorbed by official papers 2 . 
 
 1 In the same spirit with this remark, the acute and thinking Lord Dudley (himself a 
 reviewer) says, in one of his letters to the Bishop of Llandaff, recently published, "If 
 any branch of the public administration were as ' infamously jobbed ' as the Reviews, it 
 must soon fall a victim to the just indignation of the world." See also an able pamphlet 
 called, " Reviewers Reviewed," by Mr. O'Reid. " Literature itself," he states, " interests 
 but few, though it employs so many more. Its honours are degraded; its pleasures are 
 but little understood ; it has assumed a commercial character, and is esteemed in this 
 light. It has fallen a prey to criticism." 
 
 2 Though Granville having finished his strictures, I will not add to them in his own 
 name, I cannot help here recollecting the sharp cutting-knife of a most trenchant, though 
 a less polished person than Lady Hungerford's admirer ; and as there are malignant and 
 ignorant critics, as well as fair and learned ones, while I honour the latter, I would 
 address to the former what Swift says of their mother, in the " Battle of the Books." It 
 will wind up the subject excellently well .— 
 
 " Meanwhile Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to mind an ancient prophecy, which 
 bore no very good face to his children the moderns, bent his flight to the region of a ma 
 lignant deity, called Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zem- 
 bla there Momus found her extended in her den, upon the spoils of numberless volumes, 
 half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age ; 
 at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. 
 There was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hood-winked and headstrong, yet giddy and 
 perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and 
 Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a 
 cat; her head, and ears, and voice, resembled those of an ass; her teeth fallen out be- 
 fore ; her eyes turned inward, as if she looked only upon herself; her diet was the over- 
 flowing of her own gall; and, what is wonderful to conceive, the bulk of her spleen in- 
 creased faster than the sucking of her children could diminish it. 
 
 " ' Goddess,' said Momus, 1 can you sit idly here, while our devout worshippers, the 
 moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and perhaps now lying under the 
 swords of their enemies ? "Who, then, hereafter, will ever sacrifice or build altars to our 
 divinities? Haste, therefore, to the British Isle, and, if possible, prevent their destruction ; 
 while I make factions among the gods, and gain them over to our party.' 
 
 " Momus having thus delivered himself, staid not for an answer, but left the goddess 
 to her own resentment. Up she rose in a rage, and, as it is form on such occasions, 
 began a soliloquy : l It is I,' said she, 'who give wisdom to infants and idiots; by me, 
 children grow wiser than their parents* by me, beaux become politicians, and schoolboys 
 judges of philosophy; by me, sophisters debate, and conclude upon the depths of 
 knowledge ; and coffee-house wits, instinct by me, can correct an author's style, and 
 display his minutest errors, without understanding a syllable of his matter, or his 
 language; by me, striplings spend their judgment, as they do their estate, before it 
 comes into their hands. It is I who have deposed wit and knowledge from their empire 
 over poetry, and advanced myself in their stead. And shall a few upstart ancients dare 
 oppose me? But come, my aged parents, and you, my children dear, and thou, my 
 beauteous sister; let us ascend my chariot, and haste to assist our devout moderns, who 
 are now sacrificing to us a hecatomb, as I perceive by the grateful smell, which from 
 thence reaches my nostrils." 
 
 "The goddess and her train, having mounted the chariot, which was drawn by tame 
 geese, flew over infinite regions, shedding her influence in due places, till at length she 
 arrived at her beloved island of Britain." 
 
 Swift's Battle of the Books. Works 2, 301. 
 
122 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OF THE KIND CONSIDERATION OF LORD CASTLETON, AND THE PLEASANT REMEDY HE 
 APPLIED TO AN INCIPIENT ILLNESS ' — I MEET SIR HARRY MELFORD, AND MAKE A 
 NEW AND INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE. — EFFECTS OF A DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE 
 
 | ON DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS. — QUESTIONS AS TO WHAT MAY BE ATTRIBUTED TO 
 LOVE, WHAT TO PRIDE. 
 
 A babbled of green fields. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Henry V. 
 
 O, whal a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 The attention I gave to my official duties, partly from necessity, 
 partly from taste, and greatly from the pleasure which I saw it gave 
 Lord Castleton, had now become so intense, that a pale cheek and 
 a bilious eye proved to my patron that I was overdone. Of this he 
 was himself so guiltless, that he was the first to remark, with a 
 view to relieve it 5 and, with the consideration that belonged to 
 him, he said to me one day at the close of pressing business which 
 had absorbed many hours, " Industry in an official can never be 
 but valuable, and joined with talent must lead to fortune. But too 
 much application may defeat itself. Lord Somers indeed, it is said, 
 though a man of polite literature, at last came to like a statute at 
 large as well as he ever did Homer or Yirgil ; and when another 
 minister fainted away, it was proposed to burn an Act of Parliament 
 under his nose, as the most certain remedy (0 recover him. But 
 you are not yet so broke in to the trammels of business to feel like 
 them. Perhaps you have come too early and suddenly into laborious 
 office, to which, as to every thing, one ought lobe trained $ and, as 
 a scholar, you must regret the opportunities you lose for liberal 
 studies, which office seldom gives you time to pursue. Whatever 
 small stock of them I myself possess, I laid in long before I became 
 so actively employed 5 and though, sometimes, vacare Uteris is 
 perhaps the best maxim a man of business, particularly of political 
 business, can adopt, it is more wished for than enjoyed. We are so 
 lied to the 
 
 1 Fumum et opes strepitumque RomaV 
 
 and the 
 
 ' Superba civium potenliorum iimiiia,' 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 that we sigh for a little wholesome leisure to put our thoughts in 
 order, and recover our classics. This we cannot do in 
 
 4 The smoke and stir of this dim spot 
 Which men call London.' 
 
 I shall, therefore, instead of sending you to an apothecary, which 
 I must if you stay here, send you to green fields, about which, you 
 know even Falstafif babbled when he was ill and dying. Him, in- 
 deed, they did not recover, but you are not so far gone; so my 
 orders to you for to-morrow, instead of the papers I gave you, are 
 to set out for Windsor Forest." 
 
 Struck with this kindness, he saw how it overjoyed me; and 
 went on to say, "Truth is, I have a letter from the excellent Man- 
 ners, intimating that though he recommended you to me as a 
 secretary, he did not design I should steal his pupil from him, 
 or make you forget that there were other books besides those of 
 the Privy Council, and other gardens besides Kensington ; in short, 
 Windsor Forest and the Grange. I would therefore advise you to 
 go there now for a day or two ; and, for some time to come, to make 
 a regular citizen's holiday of it, and go down to him every Sa- 
 turday and Sunday 5 cultivate the muse, listen to his didactics 
 (you may do a worse thing), or wander with him to the Warren 
 House, and come back fresh to your task, which will then not 
 operate as an opiate in regard to the litterce humaniores." 
 
 Nothing could fall in better with my own wishes than this con- 
 siderate plan, which only added still more to my veneration for 
 the accomplished nobleman who proposed it. It may be supposed 
 I profited by it, and it had the effect of uniting me more than ever 
 with one of the most rational guides and companions that a youth 
 ever had. For by his knowledge of men and his knowledge of 
 philosophy, Manners was a compound of Horace and Plato, to say 
 nothing of his pastoral feelings, in those most pastoral of spots, 
 Bintield, and Asher's Wood. The remembrance is still green with 
 me, as the woods themselves when clothed in all their honours, and 
 this will account for the rapture I indulged, in a former chapter, 
 when I hailed my first approach to Windsor Forest, as the seat of 
 my happiest acquirements 1 . 
 
 One effect of these country retirements was not only to relieve 
 the waste of town occupations, but to give a greater zest to town 
 society. 
 
 After all the fine things which retirement deserves to have said 
 of it, particularly when sought in order to get acquainted with one's 
 self, its advantages are best brought to perfection by a collision 
 
 1 See Vol. I., p. 304. 
 
124 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 with other minds, which see things differently 5 so that by viewing 
 them in other lights and by other experiences, the prejudice and 
 one-sidedness of solitude may be corrected, and more chance ob- 
 tained of arriving at truth. 
 
 Hence Manners, often on my quitting him to return to town, 
 used to say, 
 
 " Go; continue to observe, to note, and to remember; lay in a 
 fresh stock of materials, and come back with them, that we may 
 examine their value, and turn them to shape. " 
 
 The thought of this made the opinions and manners I met with 
 in London of more consequence than perhaps they otherwise would 
 have been Here my intimacy with Granville was very valuable, 
 as a mean of introducing me to a greater variety of acquaintances 
 than I could have otherwise achieved 5 men of different com- 
 plexions, the thinking as well as the careless, the theoretical, the 
 practical, the strict, the loose ; and the collision, as I have called it, 
 of all these, by always producing some addition to our stock of 
 ideas, seldom failed to end in good. 
 
 For this purpose, though not, as I have stated, passing rich, 
 Granville occasionally indulged himself in a little dinner society, 
 where, though the treat was not extravagant, it was elegant, and 
 though the company was not numerous, it was select. 
 
 Having engaged me one day to one of these parties, he surprised 
 me by saying, 
 
 " Among others, you will meet your old acquaintance, Sir Harry 
 Melford." 
 
 I almost started at that name, and felt a little alarmed, from old, 
 and not over pleasant, associations. This I told Granville, but he 
 answered, 
 
 " Poor fellow ! you need not fear. You will meet a most altered 
 creature. His gaiety, his good-breeding, and that air of decorous 
 self-possession which generally gained him favour, are gone ; all 
 changed into either a reckless tone of libertinism, or a sullenness, 
 evidently from uneasiness of mind, which he in vain endeavours 
 to conceal." 
 
 I felt seriously sorry for this, and asked if there was any reason 
 for it. 
 
 " I can guess it," said Granville, "and have long lamented it; 
 fori have thought and still think him made for better things; and 
 as, if I am right as to the cause of it, it was a fellow-feeling with 
 you of despair as to a certain lady, I can only felicitate you upon 
 not being involved in the same consequences." 
 
 This, as may be supposed, engaged all my interest, especially 
 when he went on to tell me, that, soon after the final extinction of 
 his hopes of Bertha, to recover himself, Melford went abroad, and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 125 
 
 most mistakenly sought his cure in a career of unbridled dissipation, 
 not to say libertine pleasures, and returned after a year's absence, 
 with a woman, beautiful, clever, and accomplished indeed, but 
 dissolute and designing, and not even affording him the poor excuse, 
 that she had sacrificed herself to him alone. In truth, though cer- 
 tainly very fascinating, she was a femme averituriere. 
 u You have seen her then?" said I. 
 
 "Yes; and with all her personal attractions, so evidently is she 
 the cause of ruin to the originally fine mind of our friend, that I 
 could not help hating her as much as I pitied him. That she had 
 made him a father, by no means diminished the feeling of either one 
 or the other. In a word, it was evident that she was making it in- 
 strumental to a design, which everybody could perceive but himself, 
 to trepan him into marriage ; and in the prospect of success in this, 
 she had already become neglectful both of his comfort and the per- 
 sonal elegance to which she owed so much of her power. 
 
 " In truth," continued Granville, " soon after I first saw her, she 
 seemed to have abandoned that minute attention to her dress and 
 appearance which always goes for something with even an unworthy 
 female, and actually shewed symptoms of a married slattern, who 
 had relieved herself from the necessity of neatness. He saw it (00, 
 yet could not break his bonds. I wanted no other proof of his pro- 
 ximity to misery." 
 
 "This is a sad picture," said I. "Was it in his own house that 
 you saw this ? Had he gone such full length towards loss of character, 
 as to take her home to him?" 
 
 " Why no 5 what I allude to was at an inn at Wetherby, where he 
 had put up for the night. In his way, you know, he passed the gates 
 of Foljambe, and his change of life since he had been received there 
 undervery differe nt colours, made me mark the incident with more 
 interest; for I was sent by my good uncle, who knew not this 
 liaison dangereuse, to invite him to the park." 
 
 " And did he comply ? " 
 
 " No; and it was his mode of receiving the invitation, and evi- 
 dent distress upon it, that told me the real state of his mind, how- 
 ever he may have disguised, or attempted to disguise it since." 
 
 " This opens a useful lesson," said I ; " I should like to know 
 the particulars." 
 
 •* It was by chance/' replied Granville, " from a call by your 
 friend Sandford, that Mr. Hastings knew Sir Harry was on the 
 road, and as he had never been at Foljambe, but studiously avoided 
 it since his separation from Bertha, my uncle, out of his kindly 
 nature, tried to tempt him to come and slay the night with him in 
 preference to an inn, and with this view, as giving more weight 
 to it, begged me to go over with the invitation. 
 
126 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 "I did so, and shall not soon forget the scene. Though the 
 evening had not closed in, both Sir Harry and his mistress were 
 in slippers and robes de chambre. The lady, all dishevelled, was 
 trying, though angrily, to quiet her brat (who was squalling un- 
 mercifully), and scolding poor Sir Harry for accusing her of having 
 ill-managed the child. He himself looked sulky, and not the less 
 for a dirty French nurse who took her mistress's part. The room 
 still smelt of the dinner, divers garments were strewed upon the 
 chairs, and it was thus I discovered the once gay Melford, pro- 
 verbial for his elegance of dress and manner, and happy, cheerful 
 aspect, reduced to be hen-pecked, not even by a wife. 
 
 " He started when he saw me, and his lady, snatching up her 
 child, ran slip-shod out of the room, followed by her soubrette. 
 Poor Melford looked heartily ashamed, and could scarcely give 
 me the common compliments of reception. But when I told him 
 the message I was charged with, which was in truth couched in 
 the most kind and friendly terms, for I was bidden to lament, in 
 my uncle's name, that they should be separated, and intreat him 
 to return to the old footing, he became unusually and violently 
 affected. He strode across the room, struck his forehead more 
 than once, and casting his eyes upon parts of his child's dress and 
 a coral which were left behind, he heaved a deep sigh, and squeez- 
 ing me by the hand, said, 
 
 "My dear friend, I am not worthy of it. This sad affair with 
 Hortense! I dare not present myself at the park, the abode of all 
 that is pure and virtuous— there is no disguising it, I dare not 
 come. Tell them not how you found me; yet that I am greatly 
 obliged, and sorry that I cannot accept " 
 
 4t Here he slopt, and in effect, pitying him from my soul, I could 
 not attempt to persuade him. We soon therefore parted, and I left 
 him to such happiness as Hortense could give him." 
 
 " And yet,' 1 observed I, " you say Hortense was beautiful and 
 accomplished." 
 
 "SI19 was attractingly, nay, voluptuously so, and her eye fasci- 
 nating as a basilisk's when she pleased. Off his guard, therefore, 
 and perhaps seeking refuge in sophistry, to escape from his disap- 
 pointment with Bertha, he persuaded himself, that his connection 
 with a well-bred, handsome courtezan, ranked with, and gave as 
 much pleasure as a more legitimate attachment. I have heard him 
 hold something like it, when, in a fit of resentment against the whole 
 sex, he has said, as none of them have any heart, without which their 
 virtue is of little consequence, it is quite unnecessary either to seek 
 or expect more happiness than a beautiful exterior and accom- 
 plished manners can supply. The scene, however, I have de- 
 scribed told a different story as to his feelings. " 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN". 127 
 
 " Yet you say he is not recovered, but has fallen into downright 
 libertinism. How is that possible for one who ever loved or under- 
 stood Bertha? " 
 
 " I fear, 1 ' replied Granville, " it is because — while tied to this 
 woman (by whom he has another child), and who now rules him 
 despotically — he thinks he has nothing left for it but to follow up 
 his doctrine of ' I take her body, you her mind ; which has the 
 better bargain?' 
 
 "The truth I fear is, that, though no one can dispute that he 
 loved Bertha, and, had he gained her, would have made a happy 
 husband, his love was not unmixed with the pride which success 
 with one so beautiful, well-born, and rich would have made him 
 feel. Hence the madness caused by his disappointment was not for 
 disappointment in love alone, but very strongly mixed with mor- 
 tified vanity. Perhaps, also, his love was more sensual than pure, 
 and in that case, his love of pleasure, as well as his hurt pride, 
 drove him originally to this mode of revenge — for revenge he 
 thought it. Had his affection for her been as pure as yours, he 
 never would have stooped to such unworthy means of shewing 
 his resentment. 
 
 "We shall, however, perhaps know more of him to-day, if the 
 bottle, to which I am sorry to find he has too often recourse, in 
 order to forget himself, will permit it." 
 
 Much impressed by this story, I thanked Granville for his good 
 opinion, and became almost impatient for his dinner party. 
 
 We were all assembled some lime before Sir Harry made his 
 appearance, and when he did so, I was shocked. Not only he had 
 slouched in, as he said himself, in the deshabille in which he 
 had passed the whole morning, without the least attention even 
 to cleanliness, but his features, formerly so composed with tran- 
 quil good-breeding, seemed wild and haggard, his brow knit, and , 
 his cheek flushed, as if he had been engaged in altercation. He 
 made, however, no apology for being so late ; saying bluntly 
 enough, that as he had done dressing, even for the ladies, and 
 knew he was to meet nobody but a set of bachelors, he thought 
 they would rather admit him as a sloven, than be kept waiting." 
 
 " If you have consulted your own comfort in this," observed 
 Granville (ambiguously, as I thought), " we have nothing to say." 
 
 And we look our places at the table. 
 
 As he came so late, there had not been lime for introductions, 
 and it was only upon Granville's calling upon me casually by name 
 that Sir Harry seemed to notice me with his glass — when I could 
 plainly peroeive, by the effect it had upon him, that he had made 
 me out as the person of possibly what he thought an equivocal de- 
 
128 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 scriplion, between gentleman and humble friend, whom he had 
 formerly met, in doubtful circumstances, at York. 
 
 The remembrance certainly affected him, for he looked intensely 
 at me, sighed, and was silent, and seemed to wish to drown thought 
 by a rapid challenge of bumpers with every one at the table. 
 
 Not content with this, at the dessert he made a desperate attack 
 on a vase of brandy cherries, confirming uncomfortably the account 
 Granville had heard of his disposition to raise artificial spirits from 
 these libations. 
 
 By those means, though at first he had been almost sullenly si- 
 lent, he grew in the end loquacious upon almost all the subjects 
 that were started, particularly on one, which not unnaturally, in a 
 company of young men, almost all unmarried, turned upon the 
 character, power, and influence of women. 
 
 This, always interesting to me, was rendered peculiarly so by 
 the manner in which he treated it, as I could never forget that he 
 had been the sincere lover of Bertha, and therefore most likely to 
 do justice to the question. How was I surprised and disappointed, 
 notwithstanding Granville's forewarning, to hear what I did ! How 
 did I lament what seemed to me the overthrow of a mind, which, 
 I agreed with Granville in thinking, was made for belter things. 
 
 The conversation turning, I know not by what introduction, 
 upon the licentiousness of the limes of Charles II. and Louis XIV., 
 and the manners and engagements of women in those days, Sir 
 Harry professed himself their unqualified admirer, as the only 
 example of real freedom of life, unrestrained by musty rules, made 
 only, he said, to tyrannize over the young and ardent of both 
 sexes, under sophistical pretences. 
 
 He, of course, laughed at marriage, and declared it a crafty in- 
 vention of priests and lawyers, and adopted by statesmen to keep 
 people in trammels, and save trouble. It followed that he was an 
 advocate for the doctrines which, growing out of the licentiousness 
 of French romances, were beginning to be seriously entertained by 
 the then wide-spreading philosophy which was hastening the crisis 
 of the French revolution. By these it was held, and afterwards for 
 a time made law, that marriage meant an agreement of men and 
 women to live together so long as they were mutually pleased, and 
 no longer. 
 
 What was called the virtue of a woman, he counted for nothing, 
 being, as he said, the result of force. He supported this theory by 
 examples drawn from the authorized liaisons, as he called them, 
 at Paris, where he seemed to have studied them, as well as from a 
 number of those loose and mischievous memoirs of actresses, and 
 fashionable demireps, which from time to time had appeared, and 
 had been equally the object of his research. Some of these were 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 120 
 
 Ninon de Lenclos, Conslantia Philips, Mrs. fiaddeley, Mrs. Ro- 
 binson, et id genus omne—in all of which he appeared lo be well 
 versed. 
 
 To do justice to Granville's parly, though almost all very young 
 men, we looked at one another with a kind of disgust at these sen- 
 liments, which Granville endeavoured to get rid of, rather than 
 answer, by saying he was quite sure his friend Sir Harry was not 
 serious in them, and only broached them as amusing paradoxes. 
 
 Sir Harry, however, declined availing himself of the retreat thus 
 offered, declaring he was perfectly in earnest \ and moreover added 
 (for by this time the claret began lo work), that he did not believe 
 there was one in the company who, if he dared, would not avow 
 himself of the same opinion. 
 
 " I should be sorry to think that, 1 ' said Mr. Brownlow, a gentle- 
 man of about Granville's age, of uncommon intelligence of features 
 as well as elegance Af appearance, and who, it seems, after having 
 had the reputation of being a great champion, as well as admirer of 
 the sex, was lately married. " I believe I know something of wo- 
 men, and I beg not to be included in this sweeping declaration." 
 
 "We shall be all against you, Melford," said Granville, 44 so 
 you may as well give in, and confess that you have thrown up a 
 straw to see how the wind lies." 
 
 u No such thing," replied Sir Harry 5 "and least of all, since 
 Brownjow professes to be against me —the most determined devotee 
 and worshipper in the temple of Cupid 5 whose taste in beauty is 
 proverbial, and who is courted by the women for a good word, or 
 bad sonnet, to put them into fashion." 
 
 Brownlow good-humouredly joined in the laugh which this oc- 
 casioned, observing, however somewhat seriously, 
 
 " If I am, indeed, all this, I trust it may be a proof that I am 
 not a bad judge of my subject, and that I may be right in opposing 
 every one of the strange positions you have laid down, particularly 
 when you disparage marriage, and prefer a brittle mistress, even 
 (as I would allow you to mean) as a mere source of pleasure, to a 
 virtuous wife." 
 
 " This, to me" replied the baronet 5 " me, who have heard you 
 rave by the hour about Madame Rossi's grace and Miss Brown's 
 charms 1 -, so that you never missed an opera when one danced in 
 Don Juan \ nor the Duenna, or Beggar's Opera, when the other 
 sang in Clara or Polly. Nay, you are talked of, and cannot deny it, 
 as one of the initiated, a hero of the Green-room." 
 
 Here Sir Harry got another little laugh against Mr. Brownlow. 
 
 ' Madame Rossi was the Taglioni of this time ; and Miss Brown, afterwards Mrs. Car- 
 gill, the original Clara of the Duenna, and most attractive Polly in the Beggar's Opera, 
 
 II. 9 
 
130 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 who, however, sustained himself wilh dignity, though he pleaded 
 guilty to the whole charge of admiring the theatrical charms of both 
 the ladies mentioned, and even of his pleasure sometimes in the 
 Green-room. 
 
 "You see," said he, " I deny nothing, for, in truth, it is this 
 very experience of the little real power of attraction in your god- 
 desses that gives me a right to protest against your opinions. I may 
 and do find pleasure in contemplating the talents, and, if you will, 
 the beauty, of these and other celebrated ladies (the whole sex at 
 large, if it so please you) 5 but do not mistake me — with all my de- 
 votion, and whatever my admiration of them for the passing hour, 
 — for her person, her wit, or her accomplishments, I could not 
 live as a companion with any woman whom I could not esteem." 
 
 Sir Harry looked a little disconcerted, especially when we all 
 seemed to approve the sentiment 5 but still more when Mr. Brown- 
 low went on— 
 
 44 Her wit, indeed, if it was very racy and pungent, as was said 
 of Lady Dorchester's and Nell Gwyn's, I might admire • her accom- 
 plishments might even fill me with wonder; but would this either 
 create a moral respect, or satisfy the heart? When passion was gra- 
 tified, and languished, as it soon would, what would be left to re- 
 new, or continue, much more to heighten it? Any thing from 
 mind? from reciprocity of sentiment? from mutual esteem? No. 
 She has no mind ; or if she has, it can only embitter her feelings, 
 by making her lament the loss of her virtue." 
 
 44 Is virtue, then, or rather chastity, for that is your meaning," 
 said Sir Harry, "a sine qua non to good taste? In the arts, or 
 belles-lettres, for instance ? May not an elegant-minded mistress 
 be your companion there? " 
 
 44 My point is," answered Brownlow, 44 that in an unchaste wo- 
 man, or one who has parted with her honour, this elegance of 
 mind is not to be found." 
 
 "What! may not she understand and admire a picture or a 
 statue?" 
 
 " Yes; particularly if they partake, as they very likely may, of 
 her own licentiousness ; but in the belles-lettres, which you also 
 mentioned, I should say not ; — for genuine belles-lettres having 
 good taste for their province, and all good taste, that is, real ele- 
 gance of mind, requiring delicacy and virtue for their foundation, 
 nay, their very essence, a woman destitute of these, as an unchaste 
 woman must be, cannot feel their real beauties/' 
 
 44 According to you, then, a kept mistress could not relish Shak- 
 speare ? " 
 
 44 1 know not," said Brownlow, " what parts of him she might 
 relish ; but there are parts which, if she is not lost to all feeling. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 131 
 
 must make her ashamed, despairing, and unhappy. What woman 
 of loose conduct, if not abandoned, could contemplate the innocent 
 Juliet or Desdemona, Imogen or Ophelia, and, far from pleasure, 
 not turn with horror to herself? But if abandoned, what pretension 
 can she have to the delicacy of mind which I have said is essential 
 to the good taste necessary to make a woman a companion ? " 
 
 We all applauded this sentiment, and the baronet looked embar- 
 rassed. 
 
 "As my support in this, 1 ' continued Brownlow, "recollect the 
 poor Jesse of Shenstone, once seemingly endowed with a taste for 
 elegance, but lost with her innocence : 
 
 * If thro' the garden's flowery walks I stray, 
 
 And court the jasmins which could once allure, 
 
 Hope not to find delight in us, they say, 
 For we are spotless, Jesse, we are pure.' 
 
 Such self-condemnation, by destroying all cheerfulness, must at 
 once destroy companionship, and render even beauty nugatory, 
 perhaps repulsive j and thus, as far as even mere passion is con- 
 cerned, your heroine has lost the power of creating it, and has 
 dwindled either into a sorrowful mope, or a reckless, abandoned 
 prostitute." 
 
 Instead of answering this forcible elucidation, Sir Harry filled 
 his glass to the brim, and began beating the devil's tattoo under the 
 table : and it was easy to see he was maintaining a contest wilh 
 himself; but, rallying a little, he observed, 
 
 " This will, at least, not apply to a mistress's wit. That surely 
 must remain intrinsically wit, whatever becomes of esteem." 
 
 " I am too fond of wit, as a mark of intellectual vigour," re- 
 turned Mr. Brownlow, "to deny its power. But in this instance, 
 what power? To please by filling the understanding, and giving 
 food for reflection ? No 5 to amuse, perhaps to dazzle and excite, 
 but only for a moment. The effect over, it revives not. Like a cor- 
 dial, it warms and kindles, but has no nourishment; for we love 
 not, because we do not respect the person of the speaker, and our 
 esteem for intellect is so mingled with disesteem for character, that 
 we do not remember what is spoken with pleasure." 
 
 " According to this," said Sir Harry, " you would not admire a 
 beautiful passage in a play, should the actor be a bad moral cha- 
 racter." 
 
 " I should endeavour," returned Brownlow, " to think only of 
 the author, and forget the actor." 
 
 " But how, if the author himself was a profligate? Would that 
 derogate from (he beauty of the language ? " 
 
 "Not from its beauty in the abstract," returned Brownlow, "but 
 
132 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 from my pleasure in it, certainly, unless I could succeed in for- 
 getting the writer. 1 ' 
 
 " What think you of Sterne or Rousseau? 1 ' asked Sir Harry. 
 
 44 As writers or men?" asked Brownlow, 
 
 44 As both conjoined, 11 replied Sir Harry. 
 
 " Much as I admire them as writers, " said his opponent, 44 if I 
 think of their characters while reading, I answer distinctly and 
 fairly, my pleasure is much diminished." 
 
 4 4 What ! a-l the pathos which surrounds Uncle Toby and Le Fevre, 
 or the wit that belongs to old Shandy ! " 
 
 " Even so; unless, as it luckily often happens, that in this wit 
 and pathos I am so beguiled, that I forget the bad husband and 
 pretended lover of virtue." 
 
 " And Rousseau?" 
 
 44 There I am very clear 5 for in all his most eloquent touches, 
 1 never do, and never can, forget the hypocritical sophist — the 
 avowed thief — the false witness — the deserter of his offspring. No, 
 Melford, do not be led astray by the meteor of false sentiment, into 
 the deceit of thinking evil good 5 or good evil 5 or that a woman's 
 virtue does not heighten her charms, even to a man of pleasure. 
 But, as to the meretricious attractions of the persons you have 
 mentioned, be assured, what I always thought, and now know, is 
 true ; that one kind look, one soft pressure of the hand, from the 
 wife of your heart, who loves you, and knows you love her, is worth 
 a whole harem of purchased favours." 
 
 This address seemed by no means thrown away upon him to 
 whom it was directed, for he not only shewed signs of being beat, 
 but of inward distress, for which, when I thought of what had 
 caused this change in his character, I heartily pitied him. 
 
 Nor was it lost upon any of us, least of all upon myself ; for I con- 
 ceived both liking and respect for Brownlow, who did honour to 
 that undefinable character, a man of fashion 5 and I was glad, by 
 Granville's particular introduction to him, to add so worthily to 
 the list of my select acquaintance. 
 
 Having outstaid the company, Granville gave me the following 
 account of Brownlow : — 
 
 44 He is a man of fortune," said he, 44 good family, and of the 
 best monde; or, as Shakspeare would say, ' of great admittance/ 
 He has been as much what is called a man of pleasure, as a pure 
 taste and fine mind would permit him to be, so as to have acquired 
 much knowledge of the ways, perhaps of the corruptions of society, 
 without being corrupted himself. His talents for pure and good 
 criticism threw him at one time a good deal into the theatrical 
 world, where his judgment was much respected, and his notice 
 courted by the women as much as the men ; and hence Melford's 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 133 
 
 allusions. But, if not his virtue, his taste, in regard to the sex, of 
 which you saw a good specimen, kept him pure in those opinions 
 which he so well enforced ; and in this he was the more lucky, for, 
 previous to his present happiness in marriage with a woman of 
 great beauty and merit, he was a warm and ill-used lover." 
 
 " Ha! " cried 1 j 44 was such a man ill-used? Disappointed per- 
 haps?" 
 
 44 Downright jilted." 
 
 " You amaze me ! " 
 
 " I thought I should ; and I am not sorry that you have seen him 
 thus flourishing and happy, because I had him often in my mind 
 when I told you that a man might love to distraction, and yet re- 
 cover; nay, as in this gentleman's instance, rejoice in his failure in 
 one place, for his far superior happiness in another." 
 
 44 This must be an interesting history," said I. 
 
 41 It is ; but not on account of any particular adventures — any 
 romance— but merely from the completeness of his recovery, and 
 his achievement afterwards of the most perfect felicity, from a state 
 of seemingly the most torturing desolation." 
 
 This excited me more and more, and I told Granville he was 
 loo slow in his narration. 
 
 44 You will be more impatient as we go on," said he, 44 for the 
 love between him and his first mistress commenced when he was a 
 youth and she a girl." 
 
 44 Good. But pray go on." 
 
 44 Her father, a country gentleman, was one of his guardians ; 
 he sometimes passed a vacation from college with them, and the 
 woods and fields, the primroses and nightingales, produced their 
 usual effect; in short, they fell violently in love with each other, 
 though Elizabeth felt the indications of it first, and so ingenuously 
 confessed it, that it operated most with him in producing the pas- 
 sion he felt on his part. As we were schoolfellows and fellow-col- 
 legians, I speak with full information. " 
 
 " Pray get on," said I. 
 
 4 'Well; eternal constancy, as usual, was vowed; the match ap- 
 proved by papa, when a few years should have matured it, both 
 being so young ; meantime, correspondence, and a vast et ccetera 
 —quce nunc presenters longum est. 
 
 41 As I was his confidant, I heard all his accounts of her beauty 
 and merits, and sometimes saw them together; but, except in the 
 common attractions of youth, freshness, and good humour, and a 
 seemingly entire devotion to him, I perceived nothing to justify the 
 frenzy which afterwards ensued on his disappointment." 
 
 44 There was frenzy, then?" 
 
 " Scarcely short of it, I assure you. He was but one-and-twenty 
 
134 
 
 DE CLIFFORD J 
 
 when, though his own letters had begun to be not over warm, he 
 complained that her's were growing cold, and this excited him from 
 a tolerably tame, engaged lover, into one agitated with fears and 
 uncertainties. He thought Elizabeth the most enchanting person 
 upon earth; no one like her; he was perpetually invoking her 
 name, and wrote most passionately ; till her own warmth continuing 
 to fall off, he could bear it no longer, and though scarcely of age, 
 he resolved to bring the matter to a point, by insisting upon the 
 immediate fulfilment of the engagement, or a breach of it for ever. 
 
 " To his then dismay, and after happiness, the breach was pre- 
 ferred. A winter at Bath, while he was immersed in Oxford stu- 
 dies, and the offers of a headlong young peer, just out of leading- 
 strings, had undermined him ; his betrothed was faithless, and he 
 was undone. 1 ' 
 
 " How could such a person," asked I, " have such consequence 
 with him as to occasion the misery you say he suffered?" 
 
 "Ask," replied Granville, "those who understand the unin- 
 telligible subject of love, in all its million of forms and colours, to 
 explain it, for I could as soon square the circle as tell you. All 
 that I could really gather from it was, that real love is the most 
 difficult thing in the world to discover; so many of its symptoms, 
 and those the most marked and violent, being usurped by other 
 passions. 
 
 " In this case, as I told you, my friend seemed frantic with 
 disappointment. He exhibited sometimes a paroxysm of rage — 
 sometimes a silent mournfulness, not the less pitiable, because I 
 thought the occasion of it was unworthy. He was so sunk in bit- 
 terness as to loathe all his former occupations, whether of amuse- 
 ment or instruction, and even his food. He would estrange himself 
 from company for weeks, and, like a Camillo, plunge into the 
 depths of the forest of Dean, near which he dwelt, shunning every 
 thing cheerful, and wholly absorbed by the disgust that consumed 
 him. 
 
 " And yet I am sure all this passion — this agony of disappoint- 
 ment—was not the effect of love so much as mortification and hurt 
 pride operating upon a sensibility, at that lime of his life so morbid, 
 that I feared for his mind. I am persuaded of this, because, while 
 things were smooth, and he thought himself secure, his feelings 
 were comparatively tame. He bore absence most heroically. His 
 eyes did not sparkle, nor his countenance beam with joy, when the 
 lady approached, and he always quitted her with calmness. Had 
 prudence, or any other worldly cause, broke their engagement, I 
 am mistaken if it would have cost him a sigh. On the contrary, I 
 have seen him sigh when he, has remarked how little of compa- 
 nionship she possessed for a mind like his. He admired, loved her 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 135 
 
 at first, as a beautiful child, but no more. He reposed upon this-, 
 expected no more; and was negatively happy. How was I asto- 
 nished, therefore, to witness this burst of fury — this passion of 
 anger— and still more at the lasting effects it seemed to produce 
 upon him. At the distance of twelve months he could not hear her 
 name mentioned, nor even that of the place where she dwelt, 
 without trembling, and he shunned the pathway that led from his 
 garden to the church-door, because several of the tomb-stones by 
 which he had to pass recorded the name of Elizabeth." 
 
 " It would be difficult," said I, " to pronounce that this was not 
 love, and yet, from your account of the object, it would be still 
 more difficult to suppose it was." 
 
 " All that we can decide upon," returned Granville, " is, that 
 the very profound and very new apothegm, that Love is blind, is 
 founded in truth. The wonderful part of the story is, that Brown- 
 low's cure was as unaccountable as his infatuation. This compound 
 passion of love, anger, and resentment, dropt out of his heart of 
 itself, without being immediately influenced by any other. He en- 
 joyed his liberty, and coursed the world in its pleasantesl scenes ; 
 made a reputation for himself, which you see was deserved, and 
 which went far to his success with the lady he married (Lady Eli- 
 zabeth Belmore), as opposite to his former Elizabeth as light to 
 darkness. 
 
 " And now go home; ponder all you have seen and heard; and 
 rest assured that although, as in the case of poor Melford, a disap- 
 pointment in love may lead to a destruction of mind (as, in fact, it 
 does often to that of the body), yet such was not (he intention of 
 Nature when she indued us with such elasticity of disposition, and 
 such good principles, as shine in Brownlow. Apply this to your- 
 self, and so good night." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 I HAVE ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH LADY HUNGERFORD, WHO IS MORE DISCOURAGING 
 AND MYSTERIOUS, YET KINDER THAN EVER. 
 
 Thou art all ice— thy kindness freezes. 
 Shakspeare.— Richard III. 
 
 I have too long neglected to mention my charming instructress, 
 Lady Hungerford. For though she was pleased to say I no longer 
 wanted schooling, from old kindness she admitted me as usual ; nay, 
 as I thought, was more than ever gracious. 
 
136 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 I did not plume myself upon this, for I had lact enough to see 
 that Granville's friendship for me, or rather perhaps my friendship 
 for him, which made him my constant theme, went full half-way 
 towards the easy footing on which I was treated. Be that as it may, 
 I was never denied, and sometimes without waiting in the ante- 
 room was conducted at once to the boudoir. 
 
 On one of these occasions, Lady Hungerford was not there, 
 though she could only just have quitted it, for her keys were in her 
 cabinet, and several letters lay open upon the table. One of them, a 
 very long one, was in a hand I had always too well recollected 5 and, 
 to my astonishment, delight, and terror, a miniature of the writer, 
 exquisitely painted, and giving all the sparkle as well as sensibility 
 of her countenance, lay by the side of it. 
 
 I was quite overpowered — my eyes gloated upon it — I fetched 
 my breath quickly—and was lost in a trance, when my patroness 
 entered. 
 
 She saw at once my whole situation 5 coloured deeply herself, 
 with surprise and agitation, and would have been angry, had she not 
 seen, as she said, that I was more sinned against than sinning. 
 She, however, in a hurried manner, swept the letters from the table, 
 and turned the face of the minialure from my eyes; though that 
 did little good, for the back shewed one of those lovely dark tresses, 
 which I had too often admired not to recognise. 
 
 After a minute's silence, during which she seemed to be recollect- 
 ing herself, Lady Hungerford said, 
 
 "This is most untoward. I will own to you that I have kept this 
 picture almost religiously from your sight, from the fear of the very 
 effect which I see it has had upon you 5 and most seriously do I 
 grieve to see how little you are cured when most tt behoves you to 
 be so." 
 
 I gave a deep sigh at every thing being thus recalled, but could 
 not help saying, 
 
 "Surely, lady, there is some mystery hanging about this agi- 
 tating subject, which, as you are so kind as to interest yourself 
 about it, you would only be more merciful to explain. Why, may 
 1 humbly ask, does it more behove me now to be cured than at 
 any other lime, when at any, and every time, I feel that not to be 
 so only urges me on to perdition ? " 
 
 " I had hoped," replied she, recovering her composure, " never 
 to have heard that sentiment again ; and really, from your friend 
 Mr. Granville's account, I thought that your study of the world, 
 in which you were making such progress, had had the effect we 
 both wished for you. This little incident has undeceived me; and 
 I shall certainly ask my uncle to send you abroad with your friend, 
 as soon as the event he expecls happens. To remain here is mad- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 137 
 
 ness, and pity indeed is it that so fair a fortune in expectancy 
 should be spoiled by such want of firmness." Then, seeing that I 
 was about to reply, she interrupted me, saying, 44 It is not that I 
 blame your constancy, or that I do not in some measure admire it; 
 but when so strongly forbidden by duty to her, as well as your- 
 self— " 
 
 44 Duty to her! " 
 
 44 Yes; for why should you embarrass, and add to her uneasi- 
 ness ? " 
 
 " I, madam? I embarrass? I add to uneasiness? What can 
 this mean ? Is not Miss Hastings free — free as air ? Unless indeed 
 she too has set her affection where it is not returned; but that — 
 that's impossible ! " 
 
 " I believe so," said Lady Hungerford. 44 But let me probe 
 you, and deeply too, in a question which I will not ask if you are 
 afraid of it ; for I tell you it will try you." 
 
 44 If it be any thing," replied I, firmly, 44 which concerns Miss 
 Hastings' happiness — if it reveal that her affections are both pledged 
 and requited— believe me, though my life depended upon it, I 
 would rejoice." 
 
 44 Nobly resolved, and nobly uttered," replied Lady Hungerford; 
 44 and I am sure my dear Bertha would feel all its generosity, could 
 she know it. But tell me if I am really to understand what it im- 
 ports, that you could see her married with composure, and be 
 yourself happy ? " 
 
 44 With composure, I will not say," returned I ; 44 but as happy 
 as I am now- — nay more, to think that her own happiness was 
 secured, I am very sure of myself when I answer, yes." 
 
 44 1 am very sure," replied the frank and winning lady, 44 that 
 you yourself deserve ail the happiness you have missed, and if that 
 will console you, that your own heart is not unworthy of Bertha's. 
 Were the thing not absolutely impossible, and willed by fate so to 
 be, I could even wish you success; nor, I am free to say, is there 
 any thing in your birth, still less with your mind, and the prospects 
 you have before you, in your worldly situation, which would pre- 
 vent my doing so. But fate, as I have said, has so willed it, and 
 must be obeyed. The thing, were you an emperor, is quite out of 
 question." 
 
 I felt all the kindness and condescension of this speech, and only 
 longed to kiss the fair hand which touched my arm in the eagerness 
 with which she supported it by action. I felt it, however, as a 
 complete death-warrant, and so I told her, adding my entreaty that 
 all the mystery which seemed, particularly of late, to hang about 
 the subject might be cleared up. 
 
 44 It would," I said, 44 go farther than any thing else to settle 
 
138 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 my mind for ever. As it is," I added, " the uncertainty, the mys- 
 tery, are far more insupportable than the unequivocal assurance of 
 her hand and heart being betrothed." 
 
 Lady Hungerford, smiling at the energy with which I said this, 
 observed, that she thought Rousseau himself could not have 
 expressed his feelings more warmly. Better, however, to forget, 
 instead of nursing them, which it was too plain I was doing. 
 
 "Your ladyship need not fear for me," replied I, "provided 
 only that the fact is, as I have gathered it from all quarters — that 
 the execution is ordered, and that there are no hopes of a re- 
 prieve." 
 
 At this she looked hesitatingly, and at length observed, 
 "I do not mean to say, that what you have supposed, and seem 
 so to wish, is the absolute fact 5 nor am I at liberty to say a word 
 more 5 but if it were (whether this is, or is not, bravado), let me 
 ask, what really would become of your affection? " 
 
 " Madam," answered I, " I would hug|it to my heart, and carry 
 it with me to the grave." 
 
 The amiable woman was moved with this in a manner as remark- 
 able as unexpected. Her cheek flushed, tears glistened in her eyes, 
 and this queen of fashion, this observed of the drawing-room, and 
 ornament of the presence, became an absolute daughter of nature 
 in her simplest and most amiable form. How wrong are upstart 
 railers to suppose that either men or women are necessarily 
 hardened because their lot is cast among the great \ 
 
 Finding that the agitation produced did no& subside, she said, 
 with a smile which almost contradicted her words, 
 
 " You must go, for 'tis in vain to counsel, and almost to blame 
 you. These conversations do me no good, and must not be renewed. 
 Go ; and God bless you." 
 
 With that she gave me her hand, which with all her kindness she 
 had never done before, and I left her in a tumult of curiosity as 
 well as of anxiety ; for, while I considered this conversation more 
 than ever decisive of my fate, there was a mystery about it, which 
 1 would have given more than I was worth to unravel. 
 
 That day there was another great dinner at Lord Castleton's, very 
 different from the last I described, as having been so honoured by 
 the attendance of the illustrious Paragraph. In my then frame of 
 mind, perhaps this was the best thing that could have happened, to 
 
 " This reflection, just in itself, is supported by a trait in a very great person, so pleas- 
 ing, that I cannot help transcribing it. When the Dauphin of France was attacked by the 
 small-pox, in 1752, his wife passed days and nights by his bed-side. Pousse, a blunt 
 physician, called in, and being a stranger to the court, did not know her, and thought she 
 was a hired nurse. "Parbleu," said he, " voila la meilleure garde que j'aie vue. Com- 
 ment vous appelle-t-on, ma bonne? "—Mem. de Mad. Du Hausset. 
 
 Catalogues are made of the crimes of royal persons ; why not of their virtues? 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 139 
 
 divert it from the consuming thoughts which my interview with 
 Lady Hungerford had generated. But my thoughts, not at all pre- 
 pared to wander into the world, were centered more than ever in 
 the comparatively little spot which contained all that, in my mind 
 at least, that world could boast of, that was worth pursuing. 
 
 I would, therefore, far more readily have shut myself up with 
 Granville, who called upon me an hour before dinner, to whom I 
 related all that had passed with Lady Hungerford, and whom I in 
 vain sounded, and at last entreated, as one in confidence of the 
 family, to supply what Lady Hungerford thought it her duty to 
 refuse me. 
 
 44 I have long," said I, " thought there was some mystery hanging 
 over this too fascinating being — fascinating, you know, to others 
 as well as to me, but whose addresses she refused. At her age, and 
 with her great part in the world, if she choose to play it, to remain 
 shut up within so small, though seemingly so magic a circle as 
 Foljambe, from which, as if spell-bound, she does not issue, never 
 coming to London, or approaching the court, which she seems 
 formed to adorn as well as a rural shrine ; her father, though old, 
 not being any obstacle to this from want of health or even inclina- 
 tion : — all this surely must appear as marvellous to you as to me, 
 unless you have a key to it." 
 
 44 You forget," said he (endeavouring, as I thought, to parry my 
 question), 44 the domestic calamity they suffered, not so long ago as 
 for its effect to have subsided. With all his faults Mr. Hastings 
 loved his son, and she her brother, so much so, that although not in 
 the same degree, we might almost compare her feelings to those of 
 the lady Olivia in Twelfth Night, who also lost a brother, 
 
 ' For whose dear love, 
 They say she hath abjured the sight 
 And company of men.' " 
 
 44 Were this only the first year of that sad catastrophe," I re- 
 plied, 44 the reason might suffice; but even Olivia, it should appear, 
 did not remain a recluse three years, nor even in her retirement 
 abjure the sight, at least, of the proper man. In short, her grief 
 was not confined to the loss of a brother. Here, therefore, there not 
 only may be, but from Lady Hungerford's plain admission, there 
 is a proper man. For the love of heaven, therefore," said 1, 44 as 
 well as for the effectual cure it will prove to myself, tell me if it is 
 so. Once convinced that her affections are engaged, though to 
 whom, in the recesses where she has so long been buried, it would 
 puzzle a magician to discover, I shall far sooner recover my senses, 
 than under the impression that her heart is still virgin." 
 
 Granville smiled, but I never liked him so little as in his reply. 
 
140 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 For, far from endeavouring to calm the agitation in which he saw 
 me, he coolly observed, that if Lady Hungerford had plainly ad- 
 mitted it, I wanted no further proof. 
 " You are unkind, Granville," said I. 
 
 " We shall be too late for Lord CaslletonV' replied he, and left 
 me to dress. 
 
 It was plain to me that he knew more than he chose to reveal, 
 and at the moment I hated him for it. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MORE OF SOCIETY ; AND OF TWO NOBLE PERSONS I MEET WITH AT LORD CASTLETON's, 
 
 Or else a feast, 
 And takes away the stomach ; such are the rich, 
 That have abundance, and enjoy it not. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 2 Henry IV. 
 
 You must consider that a prodigals' course 
 Is like the sun's, but not like his, recoverable. 
 
 Timon of Athens. 
 
 After all, there is an elasticity of mind attendant upon a young 
 gentleman of three-and-twenty, who has little upon his conscience, 
 who has experienced no great misfortune, but who, on the contrary, 
 views the world in all the prodigality of hope, for which kings and 
 emperors might wisely exchange their diadems. Heaven be thanked, 
 this is not confined to any particular condition of life, but is equally 
 enjoyed by the prince and the peasant 5 for it is the gift of the Au- 
 thor of nature to all his creatures who know how to use it. Happy 
 are they with whom it lasts longer than the age I have mentioned. 
 
 From some of the guests I met at Lord Castleton's on the day 
 I am now commemorating, if ever they had possessed it, it had 
 long fled with their years, and, unfortunately, had not been re- 
 placed by any other blessings, such as I had met with in Manners. 
 
 The agitation I had undergone was at least not new : it had often 
 risen and subsided, and I was not so absorbed by it, as not to make 
 one or two of these characters my particular study. They were 
 living proofs that neither rank nor wealth, and certainly not abili- 
 ties, can command " our being's end and aim," — happiness. 
 
 This being a speculation I was always fond of, by degrees the ab- 
 sorption of my mind yielded before it ; and, though the thought of 
 company, when I wished to be a hermit, had at first revolted me, 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 141 
 
 the company in which I found myself, at length diverted and en- 
 gaged much of my attention. There was indeed no illustrious Para- 
 graph to amuse by his empty effrontery 5 but there was that happy 
 mixture of the distinguished of the land for high rank and good- 
 breeding with those celebrated for talent and good-humour, in 
 which my patron, " in his happier hour,'' used frequently to in- 
 dulge his fine mind. 
 
 Two persons in particular, from what I had often heard of their 
 history, though I had never seen them before, struck me as sub- 
 jects for a philosopher of the world, which, as the pupil of Fother- 
 gill and Manners, notwithstanding my insignificance, I pretended 
 (to myself, at least) to be. These were Lord Eelix, — worthless in 
 himself, but a minion of fortune 5 and the Marquess of Rochfort, 
 valuable in himself, — but (he victim of self-will. 
 
 Lord Felix seemed to have been born and to have lived one ol 
 •those indices marked out by Providence, to shew how utterly in- 
 adequate are the gifts of fortune, unaccompanied by the true know- 
 ledge of their usefulness, to produce happiness in one's self, or 
 esteem in others. He was profuse withoutbeing generous 5 luxurious 
 without comfort-, proud without self-respect. He had no capacity, 
 and if ambitious, it was therefore in little things. His wealth might 
 have given him influence in the state, or secured him the blessings 
 of a thousand followers 5 but he preferred frittering it away upon 
 gilt plate, gilt coaches, trappings of horses, and laced liveries. If 
 his dinners were the theme of praise for the exquisiteness of their 
 cookery, their unseasonable delicacies, and the raciness of his 
 wines, his elation was at its highest 5 but he shewed little choice 
 in the selection of his guests, and his carnal feasts were any thing 
 but those of reason. 
 
 The consequence was, that Lord Felix was generally surrounded 
 by parasites, who paid him with open flattery and secret contempt. 
 His house was a magazine of costly antiques, marbles, models, and 
 expensive, but not the best paintings; and his library made a 
 scholar's mouth water; but the poor gentleman, wholly without 
 knowledge, though expensively educated, and twice experienced 
 in the tour of Europe, knew nothing of these things, and he enter- 
 tained a librarian and a foreign virtuoso for the express purpose of 
 explaining what he could not explain himself to those who came to 
 see him. 
 
 Nothing pleased Lord Eelix more than to be asked the value of 
 what his town house contained 5 and the affected carelessness, but 
 real complacency, with which he answered, "he believed about 
 one hundred and fifty thousand pounds," shewed the whole length, 
 and breadth, and depth of his mind. 
 
 With all this, he was no patron of the arts, no contributor to the 
 
142 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 success of public institutions, or the relief of private distress. In 
 short, he imitated the waste, but not the generosity of the unhappy 
 Timon. 
 
 But as Lord Felix scarcely ever met with a disappointment in 
 life, could it be that he was not what his name imported, happy? 
 
 Whatever he had been in his youth, when accumulating what 
 I have described, he certainly was not so now. For, far advanced 
 in age, excitement, and with it, occupation, was gone-, and having 
 no real resources, no mental pleasures, he became a burthen to 
 himself in the hour of loneliness, and, unequal to enlightened com- 
 panions, was left to the purchased attentions of interested hangers-on. 
 
 From this his only relief was the banquet and dissipation, though 
 even these were beyond his bodily strength. The moment of din- 
 ner, and the company it assembled, was, however, the great mo- 
 ment of the day, for it took him out of himself; and as his high 
 quality obtained him admittance everywhere, for the same reason, 
 tottering as he was with age, he visited the midnight assembly or 
 ball-room, when all his spirits were exhausted, and he was fitted 
 only for bed. 
 
 What was worse, if he slept not when there, he had no conso- 
 lation 5 for, long past the age of man, any hour of the day or night 
 (and he both knew and feared it) might bring him his summons; 
 and when pale Death, who, without Horace's authority for it, we 
 know beats equally at the door of the palace and the cottage 1 , 
 should knock at his, his laced porter could not tell him his lord- 
 ship was " not at home." This affected him ; for his kingdom was 
 of this world, and a voice had certainly " fallen from heaven," 
 telling him that that kingdom had departed 3 . 
 
 In this trial he had no consolation from religion ; for of religion, 
 amidst his splendour, he had never found it necessary to think. He 
 knew nothing of himself but what other people told him ; and, struck 
 with his display, or seduced by interest, they told him many a 
 falsehood. The very best of them flattered themselves in flattering 
 him. His nod, backed by his riches, gave them importance; and 
 this nod could only be obtained by adulation. 
 
 With all his profusion, as he had never been munificent; he had 
 not even the comfort which the " good old Erie of Devonschire " 
 recorded on his tomb : 
 
 " What I spent, that I had ; 
 What I gave, that I have." 
 
 « " Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede," etc. 
 
 a " While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O 
 king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee." 
 
 Daniel, iv. 31, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 143 
 
 In short, he was a sad example of the apothegm of Seneca : 
 
 " Mi mors gravior incubat, 
 Qui notus nimis oninibus, 
 Ignotus moritur sibi '." 
 
 The other living proof I have mentioned — that high station and 
 apparent prosperity by no means carry happiness along with them 
 — was exhibited, to the great regret of those who knew him well, 
 by the Marquess of Rochfort. He was a nobleman of very superior 
 character, and of higher rank, though much less wealth, than Lord 
 Felix. 
 
 That his wealth, indeed, was greatly inferior to what his rank 
 and ambition required, had plunged him into difficulties which 
 never left him during life. But this was the least cause of his cha- 
 grin 5 for he was of a very high and towering spirit, which neither 
 rank nor wealth could satisfy, without power and popularity 5 and 
 power and popularity were ( I know not why, for he was eminently 
 able, and generous to profusion ) always denied him. 
 
 Without success in these, his very ability and prominence in 
 every thing else, whether in political knowledge, in the arts and 
 liberal studies, or a very general information, and above all, the 
 sacrifices he made for popularity in vain, were only a source of 
 mortification to him, which he could not disguise. 
 
 Conscious of his endowments, his object was high office, through 
 the public voice rather than private influence 5 and while he could 
 not obtain it, he daily saw quieter and more ordinary men, confes- 
 sedly his inferiors, preferred before him. 
 
 This embittered his private moments ; and though, from a wish 
 to appear above it, he indulged in a display of liveliness, anecdote, 
 and conversational gaiety, which made him, perhaps naturally, the 
 most agreeable man in England, yet his spirit was evidently tinged 
 with an inward gloom, which preyed upon him in secret, and in- 
 stead of being the cheerful companion in society, enjoyed by all, 
 which he might have been, he was soured into a captious and un- 
 pleasant satirist, loved by few. 
 
 Yet Lord Rochfort had some noble qualities. Though violent 
 when opposed, he was easily appeased, could generously forgive, 
 and never deserted or changed a friend. On the contrary, he was 
 distinguished as a most kind patron, and often obtained advance- 
 ment for his proteges, which he failed in achieving for himself. 
 At the same time, his noblest, but ( unchecked as it was by pru- 
 dence) his most unfortunate propensity, a generosity, profuse even 
 
 ' " Death hangs with greater terror over him, who, known too much to the world, dies 
 unknown to himself," 
 
144 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 to madness, had brought his fortunes low, though he would not 
 confess it, even to himself ■ for he had the soul of a prince, and 
 thought himself and lived like one, reckless of consequences. 
 
 Every year added to his embarrassments, and told him a tale, 
 which he would not believe, spite of his steward. Vehement in 
 every thing, whether as to opinions or conduct, it was dreadful to 
 see a man of his mind and parts so absolutely ruined, from the 
 want of that common sense without which parts and mind only 
 hasten destruction. 
 
 He was eaten up by numerous retainers, which, being the re- 
 presentative of many great feudal families, he thought it was a sort 
 of duly to their memory to maintain in idleness. He had more than 
 one castle, with all royalties attached ; to keep up which in almost 
 pristine waste, he sacrificed uselessly one-half of his revenues. 
 With nothing like their means, but with a view to popularity, he 
 emulated the feasts and pageants of his ancestors $ nor, though he 
 was yearly poorer and poorer, would he reduce the scale of his 
 magnificent benefactions and costly compliments to those he often 
 feasted, from royalty down to his country neighbours. 
 
 His real charities, too, for which he had a hand open as day, his 
 pensions to decayed families, support to relations, subscriptions to 
 all great institutions, presents to artists, and gallantries to lady 
 friends in jewels and ornaments— all these were, like Anthonio's 
 losses, 
 
 " Enough to press a royal merchant down." 
 
 But the very suspicion of this neutralized all his sacrifices to obtain 
 that consequence and power for which in part he made them 5 and 
 to his mortification he found, that to ruin himself made no way with 
 either the court or the people. 
 
 A magnificence which it was thought could not continue was 
 slighted, though for a time its benefits were accepted. He was 
 sometimes even thwarted, or not supported, by those whom his 
 liberality had fed, or his attentions flattered • and he discovered in 
 the language of Johnson, on the character of his prototype Timon, 
 that he had scattered bounty, but conferred no benefit, and bought 
 flattery, but not friendship. 
 
 All this had at last its usual effect — he thought himself ill-used 
 by his fellow-men, and shewed strong symptoms of cynicism. He 
 did not absolutely hate mankind, but he often shunned them, and 
 suspecting everybody's motives, felt a canker at his heart, which, 
 even under the show of hilarity, was detected in a moment. 
 
 No 5 the Marquess of Rochfort, any more than Lord Felix, was 
 not happy. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 145 
 
 These two noble persons engaged all my attention, as I have said, 
 at the dinner lam recording at Lord Castleton's. For, as I had heard 
 everywhere of Lord Felix's grandeur and luxury, surpassing all 
 modern and almost equalling allantienl story, I expected something 
 of superior mark in his physiognomy, manner, and conversation. 
 
 Nothing like it. A little, shrivelled old man, with a dead eye, 
 which never^could have been lively $ an almost mean person, not at 
 all relieved, but rather the contrary, by a broad red ribbon, cha- 
 racterized his outward man '$ and as to the inner, as far as it could 
 be collected from conversation, to discuss the merits of the cookery, 
 and the embossed plate, which he did Lord Castleton the honour of 
 saying was next to his own in magnificence, was all we could gather 
 of what his mind or opinions were upon any subject : for, except 
 greedily to devour venison, and swallow repeated glasses of cham- 
 pagne, as if it was an elixir on which his life depended, he scarcely 
 opened his mouth. He chuckled a little, indeed, at some of Lord 
 Rochfort's satirical sallies j which induced the latter to say ( aside ) 
 to Lord Caslleton, that if Felix had not the wit to say ill-natured 
 things himself, he could, at least, enjoy them from others. 
 
 A discussion now commencing between Lord Rochfort and Gran- 
 ville, on some point of taste in gothic architecture, occasioned by 
 a visit they had made that morning to Strawberry Hill, —after saying 
 the house was a mere piece of lath and plaster frippery, not fit for a 
 gentleman to live in, Lord Felix fell asleep. 
 
 " Peace to his manes! 1 ' said Lord Rochfort, who had no respect 
 for him. 
 
 " Why, he is not dead," observed Granville. 
 " No ; but he is buried, which is the next best thing," said his 
 lordship. 
 
 The conversation, as it proceeded, afforded room for a little more 
 of the marquess's spleen, in which he did not spare any one who 
 was brought to his notice. 
 
 A late minister ( Lord Heavitree ) being named, who was litlle fa- 
 mous for his knowledge of state affairs, and who had lately resigned, 
 Lord Rochfort proposed his health, adding, with ironical gravity, a 
 wish for Lord Castleton's sake, that he had remained in the cabinet. 
 
 Lord Caslleton looked grave, not liking the conversation ■ but 
 Granville asking his reason for the wish, he observed that a British 
 minister ought, like Caesar, to have about him none but fat col- 
 leagues, like Lord Heavitree, 
 
 " Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o'nightsj" 
 not those who, like Cassius, have 
 
 " A lean and hungry look, and think too much. 
 Such men are dangerous. " 
 
 II. 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 DE CLIFFORD : 
 
 This sally produced a laugh, in which all joined but the noble 
 host, who endeavoured to restrain his satirical guest, but without 
 success. For being en verve, and not in good humour at Lord 
 Heavitree's place being filled up by a young orator, who had given 
 the highest promise of the consummate ability he afterwards dis- 
 played, and who was remarkably thin, he jestingly reproached 
 Lord Castleton, for permitting such an appointment «nd pursuing 
 the comparison he had begun with in a sort of paraphrase, said 
 to him, 
 
 41 I do not know the man you should avoid 
 • So much as that spare William. He reads much, 
 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 
 Quite through the deeds of men ; he loves no plays, 
 
 As thou dost, Granville. He hears no music. 
 
 Such a man as he be never at heart's ease, 
 
 And therefore are they very dangerous." 
 
 Lord Castleton himself could not help joining in the laugh which 
 this produced. 
 
 A very dull speaker in the House being then mentioned, some- 
 body wondered how it was that people could listen to him. 
 
 " Why, not to mention its being a capital exercise of patience, J '' 
 said Lord Rochfort, "it is one of 'the pleasures of hope;' one 
 keeps hoping that every sentence will be his last. Just as our friend 
 Gloomly," added he, "never fails to gratify every company into 
 which he goes— that is, at the moment when he gets up to go 
 away. 1 ' 
 
 Here one of the company expressing surprise at a celebrated 
 literary peer being married to so silly a wife — 
 
 "Silly, do you call her?" said Lord Rochfort ; "I declare 1 
 always thought her a very sensible woman, for the only thing I 
 ever heard her say was, that she wondered what anybody could 
 find to admire in her lord's writings." 
 
 Lord Castleton now complained of a busy public character, the 
 Earl of . — , who was as mischievous, he said, as his under- 
 standing would allow him to be. 
 
 " If that be all the mischief there is in him," said Lord Roch- 
 fort, " he'll never do harm to anybody." 
 
 Granville then turned the discourse upon a very voluble member, 
 just come into Parliament, who was perpetually talking on all sorts 
 of subjects. " In fact," said Granville, " he seems to know every 
 thing." 
 
 " Every thing," observed Lord Rochfort, " except how to hold 
 his tongue." 
 
 Being then asked how Lord B., a great miser, lately dead, had 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MA.N. 
 
 147 
 
 left his fortune, he said he had bequeathed every thing to his wife, 
 even his crabbed temper and his avarice. 
 
 After this Granville expressed surprise that such a run was made 
 by Paragraph in his paper against poor Sir JobProsser (whom the 
 marquess called Sir Job Proser), an inoffensive man, though a 
 would-be politician and author, whose only fault was a little vanity. 
 
 " Depend upon it," said the marquess, " they understand each 
 other. Sir Job is rich, and he has made it worth Paragraph's while 
 to abuse him ; for Paragraph's abuse is worth paying for, though 
 his praise is not." 
 
 In this style, but in spirits evidently forced, he ran on, to the 
 amusement of us all, except Lord Caslleton himself, who seemed to 
 lament what he thought this distortion of mind, though in every 
 thing he shewed Lord Rochfort the greatest consideration. 
 
 I wondered 5 for with all this, his personal manner was of great 
 good-nature, though he spared no one, and, like Jacques, 
 
 " Thus most invectively he pierced through 
 The body of the country, city, court." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 MORE Or LORD ROCHFORT, TO WHOM I AM SENT ON A MISSION INTO NORTHUMBER- 
 LAND. — I AM FULL OF AMBITION, BUT FORGET IT BY AN INCIDENT IN YORKSHIRE, 
 WHICH REVIVES ANOTHER PASSION. 
 
 Flaminius.—No care ! no stop ! so senseless of expense, 
 Thai he will neither know how to maintain it, 
 Nor cease his flow Of riot ! 
 
 ist Lord.— Come, shall we in, 
 And taste Lord Timon's bounty ? 
 
 2nd Lord.— He pours it out. Plutus, the god of gold, 
 Is but his steward. 
 
 Shakspeaue.— Timon of Athens. 
 
 Soon after this dinner at Lord Gastleton's, Lord Felix died* 
 leaving not a single regret behind, except among his tradesmen; a 
 sad memorial of the vanity of riches. 
 
 Lord Rochfort did not die j better, perhaps, if he had, rather 
 than live to eat his heart, and waste his substance ; proving not 
 only the same vanity of riches, but also the insufficiency of abilities 
 and accomplishments, however greats to procure whatever sum- 
 mum bonum we propose to ourselves. 
 
 As Lord Rochfort was frequently at Lord Casllelon's, I had a full 
 
148 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 opportunity of knowing him. Vehemence, and the carrying every 
 feeling, and even opinion, to extremity, though little persisted in, 
 were his distinguishing features. 
 
 I cannot say he was "stiff in opinions," for he frequently 
 changed them \ nor " always in the wrong," for his penetration 
 often proved him right g but whatever he was bent upon, he was 
 headlong in pursuing. Shining, too, was necessary to him, 
 whether in public or private, and he exemplified what was said of 
 Wharton : — 
 
 " Though listening senates hung on all he spoke, 
 The club must hail him master of the joke. " 
 
 This versatility and this vehemence, conjoined, were, however, 
 next to his imprudence, his greatest enemies. 
 
 Yet Lord Caslleton had so high an opinion of Lord Rochfort, as 
 a man of genius and commanding talent, and, in fact, bore him such 
 great good-will as a friend, that I expected daily to see a closer 
 union between them in politics. In this I was disappointed; for 
 though, supported by the whole strength of Lord Caslleton, who 
 deemed him, in point of ability, equal to all the rest of the ministers 
 put together, his advancement was opposed by them all, for reasons 
 drawn from the character I have described 5 and as their influence 
 in Parliament was great, however wanting individually in talent, 
 my patron was forced to yield. 
 
 Thus, a seal seemed set upon Lord Rochforfs peculiar ambition, 
 which was to influence Europe, and direct the counsels of his 
 sovereign, not to vegetate on any thing subordinate, however 
 lucrative or splendid. Hence, though every thing short of the 
 cabinet had been offered him — the great court offices, Ireland, and 
 even India — he had refused them all ; and then, from indignation 
 at his disappointments, or, as he called them, his affronts, he would 
 be all for renouncing a rascally world — -would declaim against 
 riches, and be ready, in a fit of temperance, 
 
 "To feed on pulse." 
 
 In these capricious moments it was in vain to expect any con- 
 sistency from him for, flying from politics, and even society, he 
 would for a week or two shut himself up in the country, and swear 
 that there was no happiness to be found in grandeur, but only in 
 . retreat and moderation. 
 
 Why he failed in his greater object, was a problem to most, but 
 was attributed by Granville to his dictatorial as well as satirical 
 temper, not at all softened by a consciousness of his superiority to 
 others. Not only the ministry, but the sovereign himself, was 
 afraid of him for this. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 149 
 
 Yet ho was too valuable an ally to slight, and no man received 
 more personal attentions from the highest characters at home and 
 abroad. Alas! this only hastened his ruin ; for in this not only the 
 magnificence of his disposition found greater cause for display, but 
 he made it a sort of point of honour to indulge it to the utmost, in 
 order to shew how far his personal consequence was above what he 
 called the injustice of the world. 
 
 Foreign as well as native princes were his frequent guests 5 the 
 splendour of his house and housekeeping was increased ; his kitchen 
 rivalled that of the king 5 and the Greek physician, who visited 
 Anthony's at Alexandria, and came away astonished, though he 
 might not have seen eight wild boars roasting for one supper 
 yet would have blessed himself at the profusion of the English 
 nobleman. 
 
 Being a colonel in the army, he thought it was no more than 
 became him, on the king's birth-day, to give dinners to his whole 
 regiment, not only officers and men, but their wives and children, 
 to the amount of near a thousand souls ; and from this feast no offi- 
 cer's lady retired without an expensive present. 
 
 The subject of presents, indeed, occasioned sad reminiscences 5 
 for, emulating the magnificent customs of Spain, if a person of 
 consequence professed great admiration of any particular valuable, 
 of the many Lord Rochfort possessed, it was sent to him as a gift ; 
 while a gift made to himself was returned a hundred-fold. Thus 
 the ambassador of France, having presented him with a plume of 
 feathers, worn, it was said, by Henri Quatre, a picture of Titian, 
 which the ambassador had admired,, and which had cost many 
 hundred pounds, was sent him in return. The pounds had not been 
 paid out of current income, but capital ^ but the reputation of the 
 marquess was highly raised by this trait of grandeur d'ame^dX the 
 court of Versailles. 
 
 This, and other instances of the same kind made Lord Caslleton, 
 who lamented the evident consequences of such prodigality, tremble 
 for his friend, with whom he remonstrated upon its imprudence, 
 but in vain. It was hence that Lord Castleton used to compare him, 
 as well as Lord Felix (though for very different reasons), toTimon 
 of Athens, particularly in that description of him, which he said he 
 so resembled, that he thought he must have sat for it — 
 
 " If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog, 
 And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold : 
 If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more 
 Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon ; 
 Ask nothing; give il him, it foals me, straight. 
 
 1 See Plutarch's Vil. Anton. 
 
150 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 And able horses. No porter at his gate, 
 But rather one that smiles, and still invites 
 All that pass by." 
 
 " It is, indeed, lamentable," observed Granville, who heard 
 Lord Castleton make this remark, "to see those fine qualities which 
 raise him so much above other men — genius, integrity, spirit, elo- 
 quence, and penetrating judgment in every thing but what con- 
 cerns himself— all thrown away, from the mere want of what no 
 man so low but he may possess it— prudence. For, pursuing your 
 comparison out of the same scene you have cited, I fear the time 
 fast approaches when, if 
 
 ' Every feather sticks in his own wing, 
 Lord Timon will be left a naked gull, 
 Which flashes now a phoenix.' " 
 
 "It is certain," said Lord Castleton, in reply, 64 that with the 
 vehemence and energy of Cardinal de Relz, he has all his reckless- 
 ness as to money, when, on being reproached with his debts, the 
 Cardinal said, 4 Caesar, at my age, owed more.' " 
 
 " I have heard," remarked Granville, " that it is this that disin- 
 clines the king to him 5 at least the on dit says that formerly, when 
 there was a question of placing him at the Treasury, his majesty, 
 with characteristic terseness, replied, 'What, trust him with my 
 money, when he cannot take care of his own! No, no; that won't 
 do."' 
 
 Lord Castleton, though in a grave humour, prompted by the 
 subject, could not help smiling at this, and rallied Granville upon 
 his gossipping anecdote; which, however, he owned, though it 
 might be false, was very well got up, for it was quite in character. 
 
 Some time after this conversation, I had arfopporlunily of seeing 
 many of these traits realized in this remarkable, and, in many 
 respects, superior person * for Lord Castleton's melancholy prog- 
 nostics were sooner realized than he had expected. Execution 
 after execution was levied in his houses both in town and country, 
 and the further dissipation of his fortune by presents or other 
 magnificence was efTectually prevented. 
 
 This was hard to bear by one of his turn ; but it was made worse 
 by the falling off of almost all his followers, who, as he could no 
 longer feast them, no longer flattered him. Lord Castleton did what 
 he could to soften his reverse, by endeavouring to persuade him to 
 accept the richest of the governments abroad which happened to 
 be vacant-, but wilh proud obstinacy he refused, still asserting his 
 claims to one of the highest seats in the cabinet, glancing at his 
 following in the House of Commons, which had been not incon- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 151 
 
 siderablc. But, lo his dismay and eternal mortification, the two or 
 three members who owed their seats to him, and the whole of the 
 small party which had hitherto acknowledged him as their leader, 
 refused to follow him any longer, and gave their unqualified support 
 to the government. 
 
 This disappointment cankered his heart, and, like many other 
 disappointed politicians, he renounced the world, and fled away in 
 earnest, lo nurse his resentment in solitude-, not now, as it had 
 sometimes been before, in his country palace a short distance from 
 London, but in an ancient and unvisited old border castle in the 
 extremity of the north, called Belford Tower. 
 
 This betokened a more permanent resolve than usual, and from 
 this place his letters lo Lord Casllelon, the only one of the ministry 
 with whom he kept terms, breathed nothing but misanthropy, 
 though he softened it by calling them essays de contemptu mundi. 
 
 Lord Castle ton had attempted, for many months, to recal him, 
 in vain; and at length, still anxious for his active support, par- 
 ticularly on measures then pending, lo which there was a very 
 threatening opposition, and upon which he was particularly well 
 informed, he resolved to lay the whole government scheme before 
 him, in all its details, declaring they looked upon him as their 
 chief ally. He added his firm promise to renew his endeavours to 
 overcome the repugnance of some of his colleagues to act with him 
 in the cabinet, and particularly of a duke minister, whom Lord 
 llochfort considered as much his inferior, but lo whom, from his 
 personal court favour, not only he chiefly attributed his exclusion, 
 but accused him of having undermined him with the sovereign. 
 
 This offer, Lord Casiieton thought, would be the most powerful 
 appeal he could make to him; and as, though ruined, he was still 
 far too high a person lo be addressed on such a matter by letter, 
 through a common slate messenger, he resolved to send his own 
 secretary, as more becoming the importance of the mission. Ac- 
 cordingly, after being closeted upon it several hours, and furnished 
 with all requisite information both in regard to the subject and the 
 character and former history of the marquess, I was detached on 
 this important embassy. 
 
 This attempt at conciliation, and the reasons for selecting me to 
 conduct it, as more reverential and complimentary towards the 
 person to be conciliated, gave me a lesson in party politics which 
 opened new views to me. both as to men and things. Granville con- 
 gratulated me upon it, as a proof of my advancing fortune under 
 Lord Castlelon ; and that notion, spite of all resolves, was always 
 closely united to the idea of her whom, for the fiftieth time, I had 
 renounced. 
 
 Be this as it might, Granville's intimation was by no means lost 
 
152 
 
 DE CLIFFORD : 
 
 upon me-, for though I was still possessed by a hopeless attachment, 
 yet I felt more and more that it was hopeless, and this left room for 
 ambition to expand ilself. The sanguine temper, therefore, of a 
 young mind, obtained its usual play on this commission of Lord 
 Castlelon, and the views of futurity which it gave me much enlivened 
 my journey, at least as far as Ferry-bridge : for there, even without 
 an important incident that occurred, my thoughts would have taken 
 a far different range. 
 
 I certainly did not, as formerly, quit the old road to York, for 
 the sake of a more picturesque country and a finer view of the 
 river 1 ,* but as I got into the latitude of Foljambe, I found my 
 eyes invariably glancing to the left, and my heart beat high, and 
 palpitated more violently than I wished, when I read on a direc- 
 tion-post at the end of a lane, "The cross-road to Foljambe." 
 
 At that moment a carriage, of foreign, and, as I thought, Ger- 
 man make, came rattling up, the horses of which were from the 
 same house as mine, but the postillion, who had been lately hired, 
 beckoned his fellow-whip, who drove me, to stop, in order to put 
 him in the right road to Foljambe. 
 
 u You should have turned to the left on leaving the bridge," said 
 my boy, " and you will scarcely make out the cross-road." 
 
 To make things sure, therefore, the boys asked permission to ex- 
 change jobs, which was granted by me, and the gentleman of the 
 foreign carriage, who I now perceived, by his air, was a man of 
 very distinguished manner and countenance. He seemed about 
 five-and-lwenty, and wore a laced manteau, and cap of handsome 
 sable. The arms on his carriage were of many quarterings, and 
 the shield containing them was borne on the breast of a black eagle, 
 spreading over the whole pannel. 
 
 When the boys had changed, and the foreign carriage had moved 
 on, I naturally asked my driver if he knew who the gentleman was 
 whom he had been driving. Think of my surprise, I might say my 
 agitation, when he told me, upon the information of his valet, that 
 he was a German prince, and cousin to a sort of king. 
 
 "Good heavens!" I involuntarily exclaimed, "and do you 
 know his name ?" 
 
 " I cannot pernounce it," said the boy, mounting his horse, 
 " but it was something about Sacks, and something else which I 
 cannot remember." 
 
 " Was it Saxe Eisenach ? " asked I, with agitation. 
 " That were like it," answered the postillion, and flourishing his 
 whip, the chaise moved on. 
 
 "Good heavens !" again cried I—" he is her cousin, and is 
 
 1 See Vol. I., p. 103, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 J 53 
 
 going to enjoy her society in the ease of family intimacy and I 
 threw myself back in my chaise, wilh I know not what forebodings. 
 
 My reverie upon this lasted many minutes-, when reason reco- 
 vering, I rallied and asked myself- — why not? Why should not the 
 most natural thing in the world, a visit from a near relation, take 
 place? But above all, what was it to me? O! but he was so hand- 
 some, so striking in his manner, so well dressed! Well, and again, 
 what was that to me ? 
 
 Alas ! I did not like to answer the question. Yet, having asked, 
 I wished to answer it with — " nothing" — but the word, like the 
 Amen of Macbeth, stuck in my throat. 
 
 I tried to rouse myself, but conjecture upon conjecture pressed 
 upon me all the way to York. My mission, Lord Rochfort, and 
 Lord Caslleton himself, were forgotten, and I could think of nothing 
 but Bertha and her handsome cousin — a prince, too! 
 
 Was I relieved when I got to York ? Let those answer who have 
 ever felt the pangs of, what I thought, despised love, made sharper 
 by jealousy. 
 
 On going to the coffee-room to order a mutton chop, and see the 
 London papers, just come in, the first thing I read was the follow- 
 ing among the arrivals : — 4 4 Prince Adolphus of Saxe Eisenach, who 
 immediately took post for Yorkshire, it is said, upon a very tender 
 errand, as a treaty of marriage with his cousin, Miss Hastings, the 
 beautiful heiress of Foljambe Park, has long been on the tapis." 
 
 The paper fell from my hands. I turned pale, and was seized 
 with tremor. 0 ! how well was I cured ! 
 
 When I recovered from the shock, I consoled myself in the only 
 manner by which I could be consoled- I would not believe it. 
 How was it possible that (his could be, and I not informed of it? 
 Gould Granville or Lady Hungerford not know it? Alas! I thought 
 they did know it, though they refused to communicate it to me, 
 thinking perhaps that ignorance was bliss ; and hence, at once, the 
 solution of the mystery I had so often endeavoured to get them to 
 disclose. 
 
 And yet it could not be concealed, and therefore why not tell it? 
 Here was another doubt. But again, on the other hand, what so 
 likely? The connection and intercourse always kept up 5 the en- 
 graving of the young hussar, and his coat armour, hung in the 
 place of honour, in Bertha's summer-house at Foljambe 5 the packet 
 from Prince Adolphus, which Bertha took from her father when I 
 was last at the park 5 the mutual advantages of the match 5 the pro- 
 bable wishes, and perhaps dying injunctions, of Bertha's mother 5 
 
 and above all, the seeming personal merit of the young prince 
 
 Oh ! how were not the heart and head made the sport of all these 
 contending arguments ! 
 
154 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 But at lenglh an apparently all-conquering one put an end to 
 doubt. The secret was now out, why Bertha had rejected Sir Harry 
 Melford and Lord Albany, and always kept so aloof from the world 5 
 and the unwillingness of her father to encourage their offers, was 
 here well explained. It was clear that she and the prince had long 
 been betrothed. 
 
 This settled the question for a while, till doubt was again revived 
 by the total ignorance in which Foljambe must have been, of a thing 
 of such importance, when he promoted so urgently the suit of his 
 friends. 
 
 This puzzled me more than ever. I walked up and down the 
 coffee-room, unmindful of the gaze of strangers. My dinner had 
 long been on the table, cold and untouched. I read the paper again 
 and again, but with no other result than the same credibility at- 
 tached to it, and the same wishes not to believe it. 
 
 At lenglh I called for pen, ink, and paper; I copied the para- 
 graph, and inclosed it in a letter to Granville, imploring him, as he 
 valued my recovery, to tell me if the news was true 5 assuring him, 
 if it was, that it would be far better to know it than the excitement 
 of uncertainty. 
 
 I began a leller also to Lady Hungerford upon (he same subject; 
 but exclusive of the freedom of that intrusion, my pride forbade 
 my going on, and my chaise being announced, I threw myself into 
 it, paying for a dinner I had not eaten, and scarcely recovered my 
 clearness of thought till I got to North Allerion. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 8 PARTIALLY RECOVER FROM MY ALARM, AND AM DIVERTED FROM IT BY MEETING AN 
 OLD SCHOOLFELLOW , WHO GIVES ME INFORMATION RESPECTING THE MARQUESS. 
 
 My good lord, have great care 
 I be not found a talker. 
 
 Shakspeabe.— Henry VIU. 
 
 Thirty miles is a long way for a man, who never had a hope, 
 to continue to resist proofs that he is hopeless. What was there, 
 after all, to make my case different from what it was when I left 
 London ? Strange that I had not asked myself this question before ! 
 But the surprise-, the suddenness-, the encounter with the very 
 man himself; his handsome face ■ his title j his muslachios ! — All 
 this threw me off my guard. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 155 
 
 " Who could be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, 
 Loyal and neutral in a moment? No man. 
 The expedition of my violent love 
 Outran the power of reason." 
 
 By degrees, however, reason resumed Ihe upper hand (that is, as 
 much as ever it had had it), and grew stronger and stronger as I 
 progressed farther and farther from the scene of my late encounter, 
 and the neighbourhood which it always maddened me to think of. 
 I became cooler for my thirty miles' reflection ; and, by the time I 
 got to Newcastle, the thousand ships I saw in the Tyne, and the 
 thousand coal-carts on the roads, all so incompatible with romance 
 (for who ever heard of love in a coal-pit?), dissipated most of my 
 doubts and anxieties, and brought all the realities of the world once 
 more before me. 
 
 I again began to think of Lord Rochfort, and his disappoint- 
 ments, so different from my own 5 and felicitated myself that I had 
 not yet the mortifications of ambition to add to those of love. 
 
 At Newcastle I found that I had still fifty miles to Belford Tower, 
 and had therefore still more time to recover myself, and forget the 
 horrors inspired by Prince Adolphus and his mustachios. In effect, 
 I made such good use of the opportunity, that by the time I got to 
 Alnwick, I was in a very fair frame of mind to execute my political 
 commission. 
 
 The princely Alnwick, too, brought very different scenes before 
 me — Hotspur and the Douglases — and I felt very different from a 
 modern lover and a little secretary. 
 
 This was farther confirmed by the sight of Warkworth Castle, 
 though in ruins, which elevated me into my ancestor, Lord Bardolfe 
 himself. For it was here (and I endeavoured to trace out the iden- 
 tical spot) that old Northumberland had walked forth into his 
 orchard, when Bardolfe's sanguine soul communicated to him the 
 news of a Shrewsbury victory, afterwards so fearfully contradicted. 
 
 " Who keeps the gate? ho! Where is the earl?" said I, as I ap- 
 proached the venerable remains ; and as no porter was there to an- 
 swer me, I answered myself with, 
 
 " His lordship has walked forth into the orchard. 
 Please it, your honour, knock but at the gate, 
 And he himself will answer." 
 
 It is certain I never felt the Bardolfe and Clifford blood tingle in 
 my veins so powerfully as it did in the recollection of the interest- 
 ing scene which followed with Northumberland, in the very place 
 where it was supposed to have happened. Nor was I a little proud 
 of my ancestor for his devotion to the cause, for which he declared 
 
156 DE CLIFFORD • 
 
 himself ready, having failed once, to peril his life again, and 
 actually lost it. 
 
 " I inherit with his blood," said I to myself, c all Lord Bardolfe's 
 sanguine temper : pray heaven, I inherit not his misfortunes!" 
 
 As I had, however, twenty miles farther to get to my journey's 
 end, and meant to take a hasty dinner at Alnwick, to which I was 
 obliged to return to resume the road, I was forced to bid adieu to 
 all these honoring reminiscences, and hurry away. 
 
 What was my surprise, on re-entering the town, to be accosted 
 by an old Sedbergh schoolfellow, and fellow-collegian at Queen's, 
 of the name of Parrot, who had left us to join partnership with his 
 father, an attorney, and was now settled at Belford, only three miles 
 from the castle. 
 
 Though I had had no intimacy with him, and he had a sort of 
 fluenl pertness about him, not over agreeable, yet as it was not ill- 
 natured, and he seemed sincerely glad to see me, I could not refuse 
 his proposal (being at the same inn too) to dine together, which 
 produced much conversation. 
 
 Having heard of my public situation, when he learned my destina- 
 tion, "Hah!" said he. "Indeed! going to the marquess's. Poli- 
 tical business, I suppose. But you will be out there, I can tell you, 
 whatever it be, for the marquess has done with politics : can't abide 
 'em 5 hales 'em like poison ; nay, says all politicians are rogues, 
 and that there is more honesty in rne, and Jim Juniper, the gauger, 
 of Belford, than all the ministers put together-, and this he proves 
 by asking us to dinner at least once a week. Fact," added he, see- 
 ing that I looked surprised; " can't do without us : that is, I don't 
 know for Juniper, but certainly me, who, you know, have had 
 education like himself." 
 
 I was stupified with surprise at this intimation, which I did not 
 in the least know what to make of, though, from his talkativeness, 
 I thought Parrot would explain it. I could not, however, help saying, 
 
 "And pray, may I ask how all this came about, that you, the 
 son of a country lawyer, whom I remember at Queen's proud if a 
 little country squire spoke to you, and very proud if he conde- 
 scended to walk with you in the High Street, should now be the 
 companion of a great nobleman, who, you say, cannot do with- 
 out you?" 
 
 " O!" replied Parrot, " the secret is a very easy one 5 and, as for 
 obligation, be assured it is perfectly mutual, if indeed the balance 
 is not on my side." 
 
 This beat all 5 and I asked how that could be? 
 
 "Why, how little," said he, " with all your experience, do you 
 know of the world. When you arrive, look 'at his frowning old 
 castle, in the midst of the desert called his Park, to which the 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 157 
 
 approach on any side can only be over miles and miles of barren 
 moor, so that he has not a neighbour except myself and the gauger ! 
 And as nobody will come so far to see him for any amusement 
 Castle Dull, as I call it, can afford, do you think he is not obliged 
 to me for my company? If I were not here, he would even put up 
 with the gauger by himself. No, no \ I was only right when I said 
 the balance was on my side/ 1 
 
 u . I own," said I, " I should not have thought this 5 no disparage- 
 ment to you, because, as you say, you are a man of education, like 
 himself; but as to the gauger, who, I suppose, is not so lettered * 
 
 "Lettered!" cried Parrot, "he knows no letters at all, except 
 those he receives from the Excise Office and writes in return, and 
 in these last I always help him with the spelling." 
 
 "But how do you account for it?" asked I; "for I have the 
 honour of knowing the marquess, and know that he has a most 
 accomplished mind. I know, moreover, that he has the character 
 of being a proud man." 
 
 " Proud enough, of all conscience," interrupted my vivacious 
 friend; "but what is pride, when he is by himself at Castle Dull, 
 and nobody to shew it to, or even to converse with, but us and his 
 servants? and, as for them, I should be much surprised if their 
 master is half so happy, for there is a great deal of merriment in 
 their hall, though none at all in his dining-room. Indeed, Jim 
 Juniper says he would much rather drink punch with Simcoe, the 
 butler, than claret with my lord. 
 
 " There is merriment then in the hall? 1 ' 
 
 "Yes; but only when my lord is out of the way, for if within 
 hearing he slops it all." 
 
 "You quite amaze me," said I, "and I should be giad if you 
 could account for it." 
 
 " Why, you see," returned he, " I can look as far into a mill- 
 stone as another. I am sorry to say my lord marquess, though so 
 great a man, is — — " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Done up. Fact, I assure you. And even if I were not his con- 
 fidential lawyer — that is to say, for the Northumberland estate, 
 which, by the bye, and between ourselves — but I hope I am safe — 
 (here he looked round the room and at the door). 
 
 " Oh, quite so," returned I; " depend upon it our conversation 
 goes no further." 
 
 " Well, I only meant," proceeded he, " that the marquess say- 
 ing all men in office are rogues, and you being one, you might " 
 
 Here I laughed so heartily, that it stopped him. After a moment 
 he went on, by observing, 
 
 "Even if I did not know that the Northumberland, and, as I 
 
158 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 have heard, almost all his other property, is dipt beyond recovery 
 — at least by him, which is enough to make any one look black- 
 still it is easy to see that there is something else that gnaws him ; 
 and that is the reason why, after being not over amused alone, he 
 likes to amuse himself with laughing at the gauger, who, I must 
 say, is a neat article in his way.'' 
 < ; And you?" 
 
 " O, me ! Why, he has often business to talk about, and pours 
 out his complaints to me, not only against the country bankers for 
 being so costive about advances, but also against the world in gene- 
 ral, particularly the politicians in it, all of whom, he says, are fools 
 or knaves, envious, lying, and slandering, treacherous, and I know 
 not what besides. Hence, he says, he would rather live in woods 
 by himself, and eat nuts like a squirrel than receive and give feasts, 
 as he used to do in London and Northamptonshire 5 and that's the 
 reason why he has shut himself up in Castle Dull, which had not 
 been inhabited for fifty years, till he came down to it a few months 
 ago. But mind, yor< are upon honour, poz, and won't peach 5 for 
 it would gel me into a devil of a scrape, being a confidential 
 agent, you know, if, though it be true, I were to tell the world 
 he is done up." 
 
 I again assured my trusty chum and mirror of confidants that he 
 was safe, and thanking him for this information, which was to me 
 very important, or might be so, in the affair I had in hand, I dis- 
 charged the reckoning, and remounting my chaise, proceeded on 
 my journey. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I ARRIVE AT THE MARQUESS'S CASTLE. — AN ACCOUNT OF IT. 
 
 Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle ; 
 Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parle, 
 Into its ruin'd ears. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Richard II. 
 
 Belford Castle, or Tower, for both names were common to it, 
 was, as I have said, still twenty miles off, and it was evening (the 
 sun being set) when I approached it. Parrot's account of the in- 
 tervening country, particularly after 1 got to the town of Belford, 
 was by no means exaggerated. Such a black, naked, wet moor, or 
 rather morass, could hardly be seen, even in the wilder parte of 
 Northumberland. I say wilder, because the beauties of the Tyne, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 150 
 
 the noble site of Hexham, and many other One lines of thecountry, 
 have always been admired by me. 
 
 Here, however, if a man was intent upon finding a place to in- 
 crease his digusts at the World, I thought he could not have suc- 
 ceeded better than the marquess, when his election fell upon the 
 spot in which this ancestral fortress had been placed. It must have 
 been of this bleak andiron region that old Canterbury thought, 
 when, speculating how to secure the country from the inroads of 
 the Scot, while Henry V. warred in France, he assures his master, 
 
 " They of those marches, gracious sovereign, 
 Shall be a wall sufficient to defend 
 Our inland from the pilfering borderers." 
 
 1 According to their present appearance, the good archbishof) 
 might rather have said, that no wall was necessary, for there was 
 nothing to pilfer. Except, indeed, the castle itself, and the park 
 surrounding it, abruptly starting up, like an oasis in the desert, 
 there was nothing to be seen for miles but slate quarries and wet 
 heather, on which browsed a score or two skeletons of cattle and 
 stunted sheep. 
 
 By the park-gate was a mere country hovel by way of lodge, out 
 of which issued a dirty old Hecate, to open it, without shoes or stock- 
 ings, and with only one petticoat, in which, too, there was more 
 than one rent. 
 
 When I entered the park, what struck me was, its wild and un- 
 cultivated look, though a paradise to the surrounding country. The 
 ground plot of it was rather peculiar, composed of hills of different 
 shapes, conical, pyramidical, and tabular, some of them of steep 
 ascent, some presenting a dark mass of planting, others quite bare, 
 or merely dotted with trees. 
 
 But though among these latter were some old oaks and elms, the 
 bushes and brakes were in far greater abundance, full of wild ber- 
 ries, not unpicturesque at this time of year, but altogether left to 
 nature, without a glimpse of art. There was certainly nothing like 
 " meadows trim and daisies pied • " but there were shallow brooks 
 with fringed banks in plenty, and two or three large fish-ponds in 
 succession, the abode of carp, tench, and wild-ducks, flocks of which 
 last flew up as we passed, so that I thought I was on a shooting 
 excursion on the wastes of an extensive manor, instead of approach- 
 ing the mansion of a great nobleman. Even the carriage road, 
 which had once been gravelled, had been allowed to cover itself 
 with grass, docks, and thistles, and the quartering was desperate. 
 The deer were as wild as all the rest, just shewing their horns and 
 looking at us through the glades that led up the hills, and then pre- 
 cipitately retreating to the covert on their lops. 
 
160 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 And yet, though not what I expected so near to the dwelling of 
 a grandee, and what all Browns and Reptons would have been shock- 
 ed with, and Price, perhaps, have written a book to prove a so- 
 lecism in taste, there was something in it that pleased me. It was 
 certainly no more than in unison with a massive, antique, and 
 neglected tower, which looked down upon me, with no hospitable 
 or friendly air, from the lop of a steep and rocky mount, which it 
 cost my horses infinite toil, not without danger, to ascend. 
 
 The castle itself was, however, interesting in this, that it was a 
 real old border strong-hold, erected in the lime of Edward II, and 
 appeared, externally at least, just as it had been left in Ihe days of 
 Henry VII., when the ancestor of the marquess succeeded to it. It 
 soloed, as I said, upon a craggy hill, rising suddenly at the end of e ; 
 the park, and overlooking the sea, wilh a distant view of the Tweed, 
 the white sails upon which proceeding to Berwick could in a clear 
 day be seen. Like the Tantallon, immortalized by Scott, on the 
 land side, 
 
 " Its varying circle did combine 
 Bulwark, and bartizan, and line, 
 And bastion, tower, and antage coign." 
 
 But seaward there was no need for these, for, in the language of the 
 same poet, 
 
 " The far projecting battlement, 
 The steepy rock and frantic tide, 
 Approach of human step denied ; 
 And thus these lines and ramparts rude 
 Were left in deepest solitude." — Marmion. 
 
 Deep indeed 5 for, unless when thronged wilh a numerous border 
 garrison, its inhabitants must have led, 
 
 " In high baronial pride, 
 A life both dull and dignified." 
 
 This indeed struck me potently, when I had scaled the steep on 
 which the Tower was situated, and saw not a creature, any more 
 than in the long drive I had taken through the park, to give sign 
 of habitation. 
 
 The evening was grey and solemn, the Tower looked sullen, 
 and the union flag, which in general spread itself out to the winds 
 that almost constantly sweep over these heights, had now dropt list- 
 lessly down, and closely lapt itself round the staff, as if from very 
 feebleness. 
 
 I know not why the gloom, which the loneliness of the scene 
 occasioned, got such hold of me ; but I have often thought of it 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 161 
 
 since, and was carried instantly back to it, when, many years after- 
 wards, I read in the poet I have just quoted, 
 
 " St. George's banner, broad and gay, 
 Now faded, as the fading ray 
 
 Less bright, and less was flung ; 
 The evening gale had scarce the power 
 To wave it on the donjon tower, 
 So heavily it hung."— «Marmion. 
 
 Although, therefore, there was still a sort of grandeur about the 
 place, it was an uncheerful one 5 and what I at first thought a pert 
 phrase of my friend Parrot, in calling it Castle Dull, did not now 
 appear to be absolutely unjusl. 
 
 Having surmounted the steep, my chaise drove up to the massive 
 oak gate in the Tower, studded with knobs of iron, of apparently 
 a pound weight each. Above was a groove, in which the ribs of 
 an old portcullis, now no longer sliding, but fixed, were still visible. 
 
 What was remarkable, instead of a bell, a huge brazen trumpet, 
 as large as any speaking trumpet, hung by an iron chain at the side 
 of the gate, which the post-boy, who had been more than once here 
 since the marquess came, said was to be sounded to bring people 
 to the door. I bade him therefore give a blast, which he did, but 
 it brought no one 5 its only effect being to produce the ferocious 
 baying of more than one blood-hound. 
 
 Except for Ihis, and the roaring of the sea below, the stillness 
 was uninterrupted and awful. My postilion began to misgive him- 
 self, particularly as the twilight sunk and darkness approached. 
 
 4 6 1 have always heard strange things of this here castle," said 
 he, " for no one lived in it for a hundred years, before the mar- 
 cus came 5 and they say, in the warring times with the Scotch, pri- 
 soners have been sometimes starved to death, by being left in the 
 vaults under this here Tower." 
 
 " Well, I hope," answered I, " this won't be our fate; but it is 
 odd that everybody seems to have left the house." 
 
 " It will be aukurd," replied the boy, thinking of his own si- 
 tuation, u to find the way backdown that sharp twist, and through 
 the dark wood." 
 
 " Try again at the trumpet," said I. 
 
 " It's no use," he returned, " for the marcus, they say, do walk, 
 often till supper lime, up and down by the sea-shore, and then 
 Mister Simcoe, the butler, he always go down to our house at Bel- 
 ford lo be among his friends. None's the wonder, for he have none 
 here." 
 
 The tramp of a horse coming up the hill was now heard, which 
 seemed to give the boy some relief, nor was I without it myself, 
 n. 11 
 
162 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 for 1 loo began to have misgivings 5 not as to ghosts of starved pri- 
 soners, but lest some change or caprice in the marquess might have 
 made him abandon his Tower, which seemed certainly sufficiently 
 denuded of comfort to make such a measure not unreasonable. 
 
 To the postilion's great joy, the horseman, who had now come 
 up, was Mr. Simcoe himself 5 not from Belford, but from Berwick, 
 where he had been sent by his lord, on business to the bank, and had 
 been absent all day. As soon as he arrived, I recognised him as 
 Lord Rochfort's major-domo in town, and he me, as one of his 
 master's visitors. This made us acquainted, and learning from 
 whom I came, he civilly, but doubtingly, said he believed my 
 lord would see me, having come so far, but was not sure 5 for he 
 was regularly denied to all visitors whatever, even the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant himself. 
 
 " But he is not at home,"' said I, " nor any one else, not even a 
 maid-servant." 
 
 Mr. Simcoe smiled, and observed, that he had left his lordship 
 confined by the gout in his hand-, and as for Ihe maids, they never 
 dared, when he (Mr. Simcoe) was absent, to open the gate to friend 
 or foe, after eight o'clock. Then, taking a large whistle from his 
 pocket, instead of applying to the trumpet, he blew it shrilly, 
 which he said would give more certain intelligence to those within 
 of who was without; and in effect, a female voice having now an- 
 swered, and the dogs being secured, the gate turned upon its rusty 
 hinges, and I was, not without some satisfaction, after a long, 
 rough day, let into the great hall of Belford Tower. 
 
 It was (I was going to say) lighted by an immense iron trian- 
 gular machine, suspended by an iron chain, from the high em- 
 bowed roof, on which an immense lamp, of the same metal, gave 
 sign of darkness visible, rather than any thing like light ; certainly 
 the illumination necessary to exhibit the characler of this vast 
 apartment was entirely wanting. All that I could observe in its 
 immediate vicinity to the lamp was, that to the walls were appended 
 a number of cross-bows and casques, and that several b§ts were 
 flitting through the vault above. 
 
 Mr. Simcoe, however, who had apologized for the dimness and 
 disappeared, now returned with a couple of wax candles, with 
 which he preceded me through another door, not so large, but al- 
 most as strong, as that at the entrance, into what he called a dining- 
 room, of large dimensions, but with a low and groyned ceiling. 
 Here there were some signs of comfort : an Axminster carpet over 
 the stone floor 5 several modern easy-chairs, intermixed with an- 
 cient, straight, high-backs ; a handsome oak table, covered with a 
 green-cloth, on which were many books ; and several pictures of 
 ancestors, grim and grisly indeed, but some of whom had been 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 163 
 
 wardens of the marches, and made this caslle their head-quarters. 
 
 In the chimney, which spread oyer the whole of one end of the 
 room, were two massive iron dogues, mounted with brass, on 
 which billets of wood were laid, in case fire were wanted, and as 
 the night had set in drizzly and damp, Mr. Simcoe, in his care of 
 me, immediately applied one of the candles to it, and in a moment 
 we were in a blaze. 
 
 The hospitable butler then informed me that he had sent up one 
 of the maids to see whether the marquess, who was a fixture on his 
 couch with the gout, could be talked to, before he ventured to ac- 
 quaint him with my arrival, but that his lordship was asleep, and 
 he begged me therefore to wait. 
 
 AH this was in very good style, and at least, if the proverb held, 
 the behaviour of the man indicated no misanthropy in the master. 
 The inference, however, was contradicted by what I presently ob- 
 served, and which I own astonished me ; for, taking up one of the 
 bougies to look at the pictures, I saw in large old English charac- 
 ters, painted on a pannel over the side-board, 
 
 APEMANf\rS'S GRACE 
 
 " Immortal Gods! I crave no pelf, 
 I pray for no man but myself ; 
 Grant I may never prove so fond, 
 To trust man on his oath or bond ; 
 Or a harlot for her weeping ^ 
 Or a dog that seems a-sleeping ; 
 Or a keeper with my freedom ; 
 Or my friends, if I should need 'em. 
 Amen ! so fall to 't— 
 
 Rich men sin, and I eat root "— Timon of Athens. 
 
 Expressing my surprise at this, Mr. Simcoe observed that it was 
 thought the greatest curiosity in the castle. 
 
 " It was not then placed there by your lord?" said I. 
 
 Li O dear, no; for nobody knows how old it is; only my lord 
 ordered it to be new varnished, so as to make it more plain 5 and 
 he did think of gilding the letters, he so liked the inscription, but 
 was afraid of spoiling the antiquity of it." 
 
 "And is there no tradition of it to be found in the castle?" 
 asked I. 
 
 " My lord, I believe, has a book about it somewhere," answered 
 the civil Mr. Simcoe, "but I never took the liberty of inquiring; 
 only Mr. Parrot, his attorney, told me that it was supposed to be 
 put there by one of the Earls of Northumberland, to whom the 
 place then belonged, and who, being in trouble, concealed him- 
 self here in Queen Elizabeth's time, till he went to Scotland, and 
 
164 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 was there betrayed by all his friends, and beheaded \ This is all 1 
 
 know. 1 ' 
 
 " A very good account," said I, " of the inscription 5 " and I 
 would have gone on with my questions, but was stopt by a maid's 
 coming in to say the marquess was awake, and desired to see Mr. 
 Simcoe*, a summons which that gentleman immediately obeyed. 
 
 In a few minutes he returned, with his lord's compliments, and 
 request that I would deliver the despatch I had brought from Lord 
 Caslleton to him (Simcoe), and my lord hoped to be well enough 
 to see me the next day ; meantime desired, that a bed and supper 
 might be prepared for me, and that I would dismiss my chaise. 
 
 The latter was done, very much to the discomfort of the driver, 
 who had been making good cheer in the buttery, and would have 
 had no objection to have continued it during the night, instead of 
 encountering the spirits of the Scotch prisoners starved to death in 
 the donjon, who, all Belford believed, as they did their Bible, 
 wandered about the park all night. 
 
 It may be supposed that I accepted the marquess's hospitality, 
 and enjoyed a comfortable supper^ followed by a tumbler of Mr. 
 Simcoe's punch, which I found the gauger (no doubt a good judge ) 
 had not overrate d. 
 
 The great major-domo being talkative, as well as civil, and I 
 sufficiently curious, I asked him if he knew any thing of the history 
 of the castle, and whether the tradition of the post-boy, as to the 
 starving of prisoners in the donjon was true. 
 
 He said that in one instance it was, which was quite enough to 
 engraft a hundred others upon it. It seems that in the days of Eliza- 
 beth a prisoner was brought in, and as usual committed to the 
 donjon by the then warder, Sir Wilfred Rochfort, an ancestor of 
 my lord, who never parted with the keys, and who meant to dispose 
 of him according to law. Unhappily, within an hour afterwards, 
 he was sent for by Lord Hunsdon, governor of Berwick, to rein- 
 force that garrison, expecting to be attacked by the Scots. The 
 service lasted near a week, during which the prisoner was forgot- 
 ten, and not remembered till the return of Sir Wilfred, whose mi- 
 sery may be conceived, when the unhappy man was found dead, 
 with part of his arm eaten off by himself. 
 
 The story ended with true poetical justice, for it was said that 
 Sir Wilfred never was his own man again. Nor was that won- 
 derful, if the close of the legend was true 5 for it seems that, though 
 
 ' The earl alluded to must have beeu Thomas Earl of Northumberland, who, being 
 guilty of a little matter of rebellion in favour of Popery, took refuge, and lay concealed 
 in different parts of the borders, till he was betrayed by Morton, Regent of Scotland, 
 whom he had protected in his need when an exile in England. Morton delivered him up 
 to Hunsdon, governor of Berwick, who sent him to York, where he was beheaded. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 165 
 
 a powerful, strong man, he never could stir out alone, without 
 encountering his victim, who shewed his bitten arm, which wielded 
 a sword notwithstanding. With this he forced the knight to fight 
 him, and always came off conqueror. This was proved by Sir 
 Wilfred never returning home without his person exhibiting signs 
 that he had been overthrown in the mire. 
 
 With this story to comfort me, I followed the relator, who now 
 acted the part of chamberlain, up at least a hundred steps, to my 
 bedroom, formerly a barrack for twenty men, and where many a 
 swinkt borderer had deposited his limbs, after battling all day with 
 moss troopers on this, or perhaps joining in a foray on the other 
 side the Tweed. 
 
 I blessed myself as I passed through deserted chambers, or 
 echoing passages, whose only inhabitants for years had been bats 
 and spiders, till I laid me down in a bed, not over comfortable, 
 and in no very good humour with my undertaking, and still less 
 with the mode in which a disappointed marquess chose to indulge 
 his disgusts at the world. 
 
 My regrets at this lasted some time, till they were lost in feelings 
 still less agreeable ; for I could never close my eyes but I encoun- 
 (ered the bitten arm of the starved prisoner, and also, strange to 
 say, the handsome mustachios of Prince Adolphus, who, with the 
 whole train of jealous thoughts which this generated, rose perpe- 
 tually and sensibly before me. 
 
 This, the shrieking of the weathercocks above, and the roaring 
 of the sea below, rendered my night wakeful and melancholy, to 
 say nothing of the dreary vastness of an unfurnished border castle, 
 half in ruins, calculated for a company of a hundred brisk soldiers, 
 but whose garrison was reduced to a gouty, discontented peer, with 
 one male and two female menials for the whole of his retinue. 
 
 Had I been superstitious, or had any thing been on my cons- 
 cience, all this would have murdered sleep ; but Youth, and his 
 younger brother, Hope, will bear up against greater difficulties 
 than these before their buoyancy can be repressed. I succeeded, 
 therefore, at last, in laying all spectres, of whatever kind, that en- 
 deavoured to disturb my rest, and I fell into a refreshing slumber 
 from which I was only awakened by the sun shining in all his 
 splendour 
 
 " From his chamber in the east." 
 
 1 immediately sprang up, and was gratified with a noble view 
 of the German Ocean, and our good town of Berwick-upon-Tweed 
 in the distance. 
 
 While dressing, the attentive Simcoe came in to administer to 
 my wants, and told me his lord was better, and hoped to get down 
 
166 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 stairs after breakfast. Meantime, looking round at the sorry equip- 
 ment of the room, he expressed fears that my night could not have 
 been comfortable. 
 
 " Rather different, Sir, this, from Grosvenor Square, 1 ' said he, 
 " and still more from the house and fine gardens of Beaulieu, my 
 lord's grand place in Northamptonshire. When we shall get away 
 from this, and return there, I don't know. But, Lord! Sir, I am 
 glad you're come, for J hope it is to take his lordship back again 
 from this sad place, where he has nobody to speak to but a vulgar 
 exciseman, and nothing to do but dig in his garden— for he actually 
 does both- — great nobleman as he is. I am sure if I had not known 
 him, man and boy, these twenty years, I would not stay in this 
 wild place an hour ; no servants but two maids, and a groom and 
 gardener out of doors. I know my lord as well, and belter, than 
 he does himself, and for all his talk about that Apemanlus over the 
 side-board, and not trusting man or woman, I am sure he will never 
 do out of London or Beaulieu. What can be the reason of it, I 
 can't find out, but I do hope, Sir, you have brought him some good 
 news, for nothing else will cure his gout." 
 
 " And will that do it, Mr. Simcoe? " asked I. 
 
 " I don't know, Sir, but I wish there never was such a thing as 
 a newspaper 5 for he takes them all in, and never reads one but it 
 makes him worse. But as you are now dressed, I will, if you please, 
 go and prepare your breakfast 5 though I fear you will never find 
 the way down without me, so if you please I will stop and shew 
 you." 
 
 Feeling that he was right, I gladly accepted the offer, and fol- 
 lowed him down, as I had followed him up, through a labyrinth 
 of passages and stair-cases, till I found myself again sealed under 
 Apemantus's Grace, in the dining-room. I read it again, and 
 agreed with the sagacious Simcoe, that he knew his lord as well, 
 if not better, than he did himself, when he professed to admire such 
 a piece of cynicism. 
 
 Breakfast over, I began to be anxious for the sight of the noble 
 hermit who so distrusted his species. In fact, from what I saw, 
 notwithstanding its want of keeping, I was fearful lest the feudal 
 interest about the place and the self-flattery of every man who 
 pretends to despise the world, might influence him to be obstinate, 
 at least for a while, against all overtures to bring him back. 
 
 Of his total unfitness for the life he had chosen, except while un- 
 der the operation of his spleen, I was as convinced as Mr. Simcoe 
 himself. Oh ! what a contrast to the really philosophic and self- 
 sufficing Manners, and how different ibis gloomy castle from tiie 
 cheerful Grange ! 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 1(57 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 OF MY INTERVIEW WITH THE MARQUESS, AND THE INTERESTING CONVERSATION 
 I HAJ) WITH HIM. 
 
 How now, my lord, why do you keep alone, 
 Of sorriest fancies your companions making! 
 
 Shakspeare.— Macbeth, 
 
 This is in thee a nature but affected, 
 
 A poor, womanly melancholy, sprung 
 
 From change of fortune. Why this spade ? this place ? 
 
 This slave-like habit, and these looks of care ? 
 
 Timon of Athens. 
 
 At length, from a sort of bustle in the hall, I concluded that the 
 marquess was approaching, and he presently entered, leaning on 
 Simcoe. Neither the gout, nor his savage abode, nor even his new 
 companions, Parrot and the gauger, had taken from him his na- 
 tural politeness } and, though strangely arrayed in a sort of Flushing 
 pilot coat, with a coarse handkerchief round his neck, and canvass 
 trousers on his legs, he could not divest himself of that air of a man 
 of quality which belonged to him. 
 
 The butler having withdrawn, u You are welcome," said he, 
 shaking hands with me, "to such comfort as my poor house can 
 afford — bad, 1 am afraid, at best, and Simcoe gives a deplorable 
 account of your quarters last night ; but it suits a banished man." 
 
 " Banished ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, banished ; not by law, but the world, which I have en- 
 deavoured to serve 5 and not the first whom it has so rewarded 5 — 
 as that book, the only one I now read, will prove any hour of the 
 day." 
 
 And he pointed to a large old folio edition of Plutarch, printed 
 in the lime of James I., which lay open on a table. 
 
 " To be sure," said I, " there are too many instances in ancient 
 story of the ingratitude of nations — Themistocles, Aristides, and 
 Cicero—though the latter had been voted the father of his country ; 
 and above all, Camillus, after being five limes dictator. But 1 trust 
 your lordship will not fix that stain upon the people of England, 
 who honour you, present or absent." 
 
 "No," said he, quickly, " not upon the people, who, upon the 
 whole, are honest enough : but what shall we say to the vile in- 
 
168 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 trigues of mean courtiers, who blind their king, or to the king him- 
 self, for consenting to be blinded ? " 
 
 " Those I come from," replied I, " as your lordship well knows, 
 are not of that description. " 
 
 " I believe Castleton is an honest man," returned he ; " but he 
 is swayed by knaves or fools, whom he prefers to the person whom 
 yet he consults, and whose assistance he condescends to crave." 
 
 He said this proudly, with an emphasis on the word crave, and, 
 as I thought, with a smile of bitter satisfaction. 
 
 " With submission, your lordship may find that the preference 
 you suppose neither does nor can exist, and that such preference is 
 not compatible with that sense of your superiority, which has alone 
 subjected you to the trouble of this mission." 
 
 He received my compliment complacently enough, adding, with 
 sufficient grace of manner, that whatever answer he might be forced 
 to give to Lord Castleton's despatch, he could not help thanking 
 him for the messenger he had chosen to convey it. 
 
 This was too civil not to be recognised by a profound bow, par- 
 ticularly when he added, " Lord Castleton tells me you have his 
 entire confidence on this occasion, and I shall therefore not scruple 
 to give you mine, if only as the best mode of answering his appli- 
 cation. He knows how long I have been disgusted with courts, 
 from their false estimation of those who follow them, and how 
 long I have meditated such a retreat as this. Tell him, therefore, 
 though late, I am here the courtisan detrompe du monde, and 
 exclaim with him, 
 
 " En vain pour satisfaire a nos laches envies 
 Nous passons pres des rois tout le temps de nos vies, 
 A souffrir des m6pris et plier les genoux. 
 Ce qu'ils peuvent n'est rien ; ils sont corame nous sommes , 
 De vSritables homraes , 
 Et meurent comme nous. " 
 
 "Your lordship will pardon me," I replied, "if I remind you 
 of that part of Lord Castleton's letter, in which he states, that when 
 your country wants you, you have no right to such a retreat." 
 
 " A sorry one, God wot," observed he, looking at his own dress, 
 and the homeliness of the room " but for the wants of the country 
 read those of the cabinet, and you will be nearer the truth. In re- 
 turn for which, tell me what the cabinet has ever done for me, 
 that I should help them, or what they would do for me, if they 
 could stand alone. I own this meanness only makes me more in 
 love with these bare walls, in which, rough and weather-beaten as 
 they are, I breathe an honester atmosphere than surrounds their 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 169 
 
 palaces. Pray, are you much acquainted with Raleigh—his poetry 
 I mean ? Did you ever read his Lye ? " 
 " An odd subject." 
 
 " But well treated, and full of philosophy. Excuse me if I refer 
 a stanza or two to your examination, and then say if I am wrong 4 
 
 * Tell men of high condition, 
 
 That rule affairs of state, 
 Their purpose is ambition, 
 
 Their practice only hate ; 
 And if they once reply, 
 Then give them all the lye.' 
 
 Feeling this, can you wonder at my resolution, or at my reaping 
 what I promised myself from it? 
 
 44 I again say, therefore, tell them how you found me : and, but 
 for my disorder, you would have found me with this mattock in 
 my garden — (here he took up a spade, which stood in a corner 
 of the room) — which, like Abdolonymus, I would not quit to be a 
 king." 
 
 Had I not thought he was deceiving himself, this speech would 
 have staggered me, for he, at least, looked very firm. Yet from 
 what I had heard of him, I did think him self-deceived, and would 
 not yield. Addressing him, therefore, more solemnly, I said, 
 
 44 Had I been sent to an ordinary character, my lord, I might 
 feel forced to retire with this answer ; but as I am very sure that 
 you love your country too well to abandon her when she needs 
 your known powers, merely because you feel injured by individuals, 
 who, Lord Castleton himself allows, cannot compare with you, — 
 forgive me if I endeavour to combat your resolution." 
 
 4 4 Well, Sir," he replied, " to shew you that my conduct proceeds 
 from rational determination, and not capricious disgust, I am ready 
 to hear you." 
 
 44 It is only what I expected, as well as hoped," returned I. 
 44 Your lordship mentioned characters in history ungratefully treated 
 by their country. Do not resemble them only in that. Recollect how r 
 they stifled their resentments when their country wanted them. 
 You have yourself shewn me an important volume of examples in 
 this respect (and I opened the Plutarch he had pointed at). Do not 
 refuse lobe the Aristides, and, above all, the Camillus of that book. 
 Their banishment did not prevent them from listening to the voice 
 of their rivals, when they wanted their aid $ or from delivering their 
 native land from the evils that threatened it." 
 
 44 Excellent," said he, with a sarcastic air. 41 You have not, I 
 see, been at Oxford, any more than at Caslleton's right hand, for 
 nothing. Know then, were the Gaul or the Persian at the gales, I 
 
170 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 would, like Camillas or Arislides, arm to repel them : but to help a 
 set of ordinary pretenders ( you know I mean not Castleton), merely 
 to keep offices with which they have no business — too jealous to act 
 with me, too weak to do without me — would be little resembling 
 ,the patriots you so much wish me to follow." 
 
 "And yet your lordship," returned I, "resembles Camillus in 
 more than one respect, which has perhaps escaped you." 
 
 "I understand not your meaning," said he, with some curiosity, 
 as I turned over Plutarch. 
 
 " Permit me," I replied, having found the passage I wanted, 
 " to read the following account. 'As he (Camillus) departed from 
 the city, he turned to the Capitol, and, stretching forth his hands, 
 prayed the gods that if, without any fault of his own, but merely 
 through the malice and violence of the people, he was driven into 
 banishment, the Romans might quickly have cause to repent of it, 
 and that all mankind might visibly perceive that they needed his 
 assistance, and longed for his return.'' " 
 
 With all his resentments, I saw this did not displease Lord Roch- 
 fort, for, laughing at the comparison I had discovered, 
 
 "Upon my word," said he, "I cannot but compliment Lord 
 Castleton upon his ambassador. I should only be glad if our foreign 
 diplomacy were as well filled as our domestic. It would be hard 
 now if such adroitness should fail, and I not think myself Camillus 
 after all. But no ; as the Gaul is not at the gate, I will not be drawn 
 out of this retreat, which seems now as strong a fortress against 
 English envy, hatred and malice, lying and slandering, treachery 
 and ingratitude, as it formerly was against Scotch rapine and moss- 
 trooping insolence. It was this that made me prefer it to the silk 
 and down of Beaulieu, which attracted many a rascal. In truth, 1 
 believe I was born two, perhaps three centuries too late ; for when 
 I first arrived here, and traversed my vast and empty hall, and 
 beheld my ancestors' helmets, crowned with pennons waving in the 
 wind, and read under them how many had been sheriffs of the 
 county, how many had led their vassals to Scotland or Wales, how 
 many to Acquilaine, I felt my heart dilate, and fear I despised myself 
 for having been born in so changed a time. For, instead of belonging 
 (o a band of warriors (robbers though they might be), 1 fell! was 
 now making one of a nation of pedlars, governed by a clique of men 
 only fit to be gentlemen ushers $ and I paced the cold floor of the 
 apartment which contained these monuments of former importance, 
 with my disgust at the world increased a hundred-fold. I shivered, 
 it is true, in a place where once whole trees flamed to illumine and 
 warm its master and his men ; but shivering one's self was better 
 Mian warming crowds of the ungrateful, the designing, and the 
 envious. Here, said T, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 171 
 
 1 Feel I but the penalty of Adam, 
 The difference of the seasons. As the icy fang 
 And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, 
 Which when it bites and blows upon my body, 
 E'en till- 1 shrink with cold, I smile and say, 
 These are no flatterers.' " 
 
 He said ttiis with an animation which shewed thai, for the mo- 
 ment, at, least, he was no counterfeit, adding, in the same tone, 
 4 4 Why should I leave it? My poor ancestor, Lord Northumberland, 
 paid a severe penally for doing so ; but though one's head is safer 
 in these times, we are blessed with the same struggles among 
 statesmen, Ihe same intrigues, and the same treachery. Look here, 1 ' 
 concluded he, pointing to Apemantus's inscription — 
 
 " * Rich men sin, and I eat root.' " 
 
 In this humour, 1 found it in vain to oppose him - ? for I had al- 
 ready discovered, in my commerce wilh the world, that opposition 
 to a favourite, though perhaps but a temporary opinion, only gives 
 it strength, and so I held my peace. 
 
 After a pause of some minutes, he resumed the talk. 
 
 "It was amusing," said he, " after my first arrival here, to ob- 
 serve the speculations which were hazarded as the cause of my re- 
 treat, by a set of blockheads, who knew nothing about me, or 
 knaves, who were paid for abusing me. One said I had run out my 
 fortune, and had come here to retrench ; and there may be a worse 
 cause assigned than that. (Here Lord Piochfort reddened a little, as 
 if not liking to glance at such a thing.) Another did me the 
 honour, at my years, to say that I was eperdument epris wilh a 
 beautiful country girl, whom, from fear of rivals, I had immured 
 with myself in this old castle, and never allowed her air or exer- 
 cise, except upon the baltlements. A third asserted lhat I had of- 
 fended the king, by turning my back upon him in the closet, be- 
 cause he would not make me prime minister • and the writer called 
 upon all loyal subjects to support his Sacred Majesty in resenting 
 this affront. This was in the Duke of E.'s paper * but I had ample 
 revenge in his miserable mismanagement of his department, for 
 which he is deservedly censured." 
 
 44 Your lordship," observed I, 44 at least notes, and is interested 
 with what is passing in the world, although so far retreated from 
 it. May we not hope, then, that the time will come, when you may 
 be willing to return to it ? " 
 
 44 Never," returned he, " while lhat world is what \\ is. My in- 
 tention, as my wish, is to live and die here. ' 
 
172 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 ' 6 Without companions ! without interests ! no pursuits ! no amuse- 
 ments ! How can that be, with your lordship's mind? " 
 
 "That very mind is your answer. As to companions, to one 
 who has taken a true measure of the world, Belford, mean and in- 
 considerable as it is, and Berwick, immersed in trade and herrings, 
 afford quite as much companionship (philosophically speaking) as 
 London, though it holds its head so high. All are rogues ; but these 
 are honester rogues than you Londoners. A man cannot here so 
 well smile, and smile, and be a villain 5 he lets you detect him at 
 once. Besides, have 1 not the sea ? — enough to satisfy any lover of 
 change." 
 
 4C I meant not to speak of the honesty of the natives/' said I, 
 "but their companionship : and where, among them, shall we find 
 a companion for Lord Rochfort ? " 
 
 " Very fine," said he, assuming an air almost stern 5 " but what 
 right, young gentleman, have you to think you can cajole me with 
 such gewgaw compliments ? Look I as if I were still one of the 
 fools of the world, snuffing incense from the rogues of it? or as if, 
 in fact, I was still in the House of Lords ? Observe this roupe : does 
 it look like a peer's robe ? Observe these brogues : do they belong 
 to a knight of the carpet? Handle this spade, it raised those roots 
 (and he pointed through the window at the garden) : does it give 
 you reason to think I am one of the blind silk-worms you have 
 left ? No 5 1 may be a worm but a worm is an honest crawler of the 
 earth, and not easily templed from his hole by being told he is a 
 beauty." 
 
 I own I felt abashed 5 for, with new habits and ideas, he had 
 either learned, or invented, a new language ; one which certainly 
 did not encourage an attempt at persuasion. 
 
 Shewing, perhaps, my sense of this, he added, with a sort of 
 ironical laugh, " Come, I think I am more likely to convert you, 
 than you me. What a triumph to philosophy, if the ambassador 
 who came to tempt the hermit back again to court, to dainty dishes 
 and silken sheen, should himself turn hermit, 
 
 4 Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze. ' 
 
 Oh ! it would be divine poetical justice like the prince robbing 
 Falstaff — ' Argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good 
 jest for ever.' Allons" added he, slili laughing most compla- 
 cently at the thought, " here is a pen and ink; sit down and write 
 to Lord Castleton, one of my treatises de contemptu mundi. Tell 
 him the delights and comforts, but above all, the independence, 
 of a border castle. Tell him that, like Cicero, I count the waves on 
 the shore, and think it gives better amusement than the waves he is 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 173 
 
 forced to watch in town. Or say that, like Laelius and Scipio, I 
 make ducks and drakes with pebbles— far better than making them 
 with guineas, as I used to do. Acquaint him how much better you 
 find it to dig one's own potatoes without an opposition at every 
 stroke, than to keep awake one night, for fear of being out-voted 
 the next. Come, begin 5 Pope shall supply you with the two first 
 lines, and you will then go glibly on — 
 
 * Awake, my Castleton, leave meaner things 
 To low ambition and the pride of kings. ' " 
 
 Here, still laughing at his own wit, he presented me with a pen 
 and sheet of paper, and with mock earnestness desired me to com- 
 mence. 
 
 I own I felt discomposed, if not displeased, but had too much 
 command of myself to shew it. I, however, could not help saying, 
 44 l am glad to find that this exile has not deprived your lordship of 
 your wit and merriment, though they are exhibited at the expense 
 of friends who honour and love you. Lord Castleton does not so 
 exercise his imagination, but laments your loss, and has never 
 ceased to do so since your retreat 5 laments it, not more for his own 
 sake, than that of the state." 
 
 " Which I am supposed unfit to direct," interrupted the mar- 
 quess, loftily. 
 
 "Not by Lord Castleton," replied I, "nor by any means all 
 whom, for the sake of the country, he feels forced to act with. But 
 at least what he says ought to be weH weighed, before your lordship 
 dismisses me with such severe banter." 
 
 " And what says his sagacious lordship ? " asked Lord Rochfort. 
 
 " Why, that to fly from the field where alone your powers can 
 be shewn is not the way to prove their superiority, so as to make all 
 men regret you as well as himself. If I may presume to add any 
 thing of my own to this, I would ask leave to remind you of the 
 maxim of statesmen and moralists, a#well as lawyers, 6 De non 
 apparentibus et non existentibus , eadem est ratio." " 
 
 "There may be something in that," said he, quickly, and he 
 somewhat changed. Then, as if soliloquising, and at intervals, 
 which I did not like to interrupt, he said, in a lower tone, " I 
 believe Castleton loves me — is honourable and open — no tricks or 
 backbiting — much respected by the king, though not perhaps first 
 in favour — ought to be supported — yet ridiculous if " 
 
 Here he made a full stop, which lasted so long that I could not 
 help asking, " If what, my lord marquess? Surely such a word as 
 ridiculous can never be applied to any thing Lord Rochfort could do 
 which he felt to be right." 
 
174 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 44 I must do you the justice," said he, in reply, u to say I honour 
 the temper you have shewn under taunls which I had no right to 
 indulge, whatever my determination 5 nor does Castlelon deserve 
 such a reception of his frank communication. I own, too, there is a 
 great deal in what you last observed 5 slill it would be ridiculous in 
 the eye of the world, and it would not be lost upon my ill-wishers, 
 if, like a pouting boy or girl, I appeared to have fled away only to 
 be brought back. This shall never be said — as it certainly would be 
 if I returned, and the cabinet remained the same. As a sort of 
 mezzo termine, however, and to shew that I wish well to Lord 
 Castleton personally, I will give him my proxy, which, on taking 
 leave of politics, as I intended, for ever, I declined to do by any- 
 body. And, in doing this, let me tell you I make a considerable 
 advance \ nor would I do it if I did not entirely approve the mea- 
 sures he has communicated to me." 
 
 44 0 ! my lord," said I, " pause not here ; do not a good thing by 
 halves. Your superiority to the duke is so acknowledged, that you 
 have but to appear, to reap the fruits of it. It is not impossible that 
 he may consent to take a high court office, which, though it re- 
 move him from the government, will bring him nearer to the king 
 This will be more agreeable to both, and thus all parties will be sa- 
 tisfied." 
 
 " If I thought that," said Lord Rochfort "but, then, the rir 
 
 dicule " 
 
 " And has Lord Rochfort," I exclaimed, 44 so little weight in (he 
 country — is he so litllc known in the world, or of so low a reputa- 
 tion, as to fear ridicule, which, even if attempted, he would shako 
 off as a dew-drop from a lion's mane ? It is for little people (0 bo 
 afraid of ridicule." 
 
 " Upon my faith," replied the marquess, ' 4 1 must repeat my fe- 
 licitation to Lord Castleton upon having so good a second 5 and bul 
 that it would spoil yours, to come to me, I could envy him his good 
 fortune in having such a secretary/' 
 
 I blushed at these words, Hot certainly altogether from modesty, 
 for they kindled ambitious hopes ; and ambitious hopes, and some 
 others, had been always so united in me, that the association, spile 
 of all that had occurred, had not yet been severed. 
 
 At that instant the great trumpet at the gale sounded. a It is the 
 post," said Lord Rochfort, looking at his watch. 
 
 The letters were brought in. One, signed Castleton, another on 
 mourning paper. The marquess begged me to excuse him, and was 
 leaving the room \ but I requested leave to visit the garden, which 
 I had not seen, and left him to his letters, alone. 
 
OR , THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 OF THE EXTRAORDINARY AND IMPORTANT PROPOSAL THE MARQUESS MADE ME, AND 
 MY HOPE OF OVERCOMING HIS SCRUPLES. 
 
 This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord ; 
 Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 2 Henry IV. 
 
 I am absolutely astonished to find myself at the commencement 
 of the fourth volume of my memoirs, though 1 am barely entering 
 into my twenty-fifth year, and have had no particular adventures. 
 Indeed, with the exception of being knocked on the head by a 
 poacher, and advertised in the Hue and Cry as a house-breaker, I 
 Teel as if I had exhibited myself as the merest common-place person 
 that ever attempted auto-biography. 
 
 And yet there may be some characters traced, some feelings de- 
 veloped, some question of consequence to our nature discussed, 
 which may be thought interesting by those who can understand 
 them. To those alone 1 write, and not to the thousand insects who 
 look only to amuse themselves in the gilded sunbeams of the mar- 
 vellous ( whether in or out of nature ), and who read more to avoid 
 the trouble of thinking than to cultivate thought. 
 
 To return to my narration $ the garden at Belford Tower little 
 deserved its name, at least according to our southern ideas. The 
 culinary herbs absolutely necessary for a rough northern dinner of 
 bannocks and kail were all of which it seemed ambitious. The no- 
 tion that there were such things as flowers seemed never to have 
 been enterlained ; and, as it was spacious, stretching round three 
 sides of the hill on which the castle stood, some large intervals 
 between the beds were filled with oats, which were very flourishing. 
 
 The contrast between this and the Northamptonshire gardens, so 
 praised by Mr. Simcoe, only proved still more the determined 
 change of humour which his disgusts had effected in the mind of 
 its possessor. A few stunted apple trees languished amid some 
 yews; which last, however, were wide-spreading, and perhaps five 
 hundred years old. These were, seemingly, the only signs that or- 
 nament or shelter had ever been thought of by the former owners 
 of the castle. 
 
 One, and one only, interesting object presented itself, in what I 
 
 * 
 
176 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 took for the remains of a stone-quarry, but which had formerly 
 been an oratory, half hid by two large yews, and constructed of 
 rock and pebbles from the sea-shore. It was kept in tolerable pre- 
 servation, for the sake, as I afterwards learned, of an inscription on 
 a slate tablet, supposed to have been engraved for that Earl of 
 Northumberland of whom, as having lost his head for the sake of 
 Queen Mary and Popery, mention has been made already. It must 
 have been composed just before he felt forced to leave this retreat 
 for a still more dangerous one among the Scottish borderers, who 
 betrayed him. It ran thus : 
 
 . " How long shall fortune fail me nowe, 
 
 And harrowe me with fear and dreede ? 
 How long shall I in vale abide, 
 In misery my life to lead ? 
 
 " To fall fra bliss, alas ! the while, 
 It was my sair and heavye lott j 
 And I must leave my native land, 
 And I must live a man forgot V 
 
 While this engaged me, a proper pendant, I thought, for Ape- 
 mantus's Grace (both of them seeming so apposite to the present 
 condition and humour of the marquess ), Mr. Simcoe brought his 
 lord's compliments and request to see me, as he was afraid, with 
 his gout, of the damp of the garden. 
 
 I found him still in the dining-room, which indeed, and his bed- 
 chamber, were the only rooms in the castle fit for a Christian to 
 live in, and only filled me with wonder that he should have re- 
 mained in them so long ( nearly seven months ) without flinching. 
 
 He seemed in deep reflection when I came in, with both his let- 
 ters open on the table. 
 
 " 1 know not," said he, M whether these will assist your object 
 of calling me back to the world, but they shew me (I do not thank 
 them for it ) that I have still some business in it which I cannot ne- 
 glect. Pray heaven it take me not away. In a word, Mr. Courtall, 
 my member ( my member, observe), who did not choose either to 
 follow my lead or to vacate ( no doubt for conscience' sake ), is gone 
 to get his reward. He is dead, and a new writ must be moved with- 
 out delay. Lord Castleton presses me for a nomination; which, 
 little dreaming I should again care for it, I am not prepared to give. 
 Yet if I don't, and immediately too, or perhaps go myself to oppose 
 an opposition, I may lose this precious bubble, and then " 
 
 Here he paused. 
 
 ' This is to be found in the ancient ballad, " Northumberland betrayed by Douglas,' 
 
 Percy, I. 220. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 177 
 
 " I wait your lordship's meaning," said I. 
 "Why, then, my Lord Castleton., or my lord anybody, will not 
 trouble themselves to send their secretaries after me — that is all." 
 
 I immediately combated this, by shewing him (in which I was 
 most sincere) that the wish for him was personal, and not for his 
 parliamentary interest which was proved by the fact that all his 
 friends had supported the government, though he had retired. 
 
 "You are armed, I see, at all points," he observed, "and no 
 time must be lost, for the post starts in two hours, and if I were to 
 go up myself, which I could not if I would, and would not if I 
 could, I should be too late, with this gout hanging about me. — 
 Even this," continued he, "seems to have fallen out on purpose to 
 vex me, for you see I cannot hold a pen." 
 
 On this, I ventured to say that if he would forgive the presump- 
 tion, which I only entertained from his having promised me the 
 honour of his confidence, I should be happy to take down his an- 
 swer from his own dictation. 
 
 His answer astounded as well as affected me. 
 " You say well/' said he; " and it will be convenient, and the 
 less liable to objection ; because, as I must give a name, I know no 
 one at this moment which I would sooner adopt than your own. 
 The experience I have had of all others effectually prevents me 
 from thinking of the hacks of the world. You at least seem virgin, 
 and of your fitness this very visit leaves me without a doubt." 
 
 I was penetrated and overpowered • knew not how to answer, still 
 less what to decide. So many things to consider — my own prospecls 
 — my situation with Lord Castlelon — Lord Castleton himself, 
 
 " Come/' said the marquess, seeing me embarrassed, " decide, 
 for, as I tell you, no lime must be lost." 
 
 "'Of that I am aware," returned I, "but your lordship must 
 give me leave to collect my ideas, which are all scattered 5 first, by 
 this most extraordinary mark of favour, for which I know not how 
 to thank you 5 but next (to say nothing of my ignorance of my own 
 fitness), the absolute necessity of knowing the sentiments of Lord 
 Castleton, to whom I belong— more especially as your lordship has 
 not signified your decision on his offers, nor in what light, politi- 
 cally, you regard his application. Ignorant of what answer I am to 
 take back, will it be justifiable in me, who am in his service and 
 devoted to his politics, to appear to have even listened to the pro- 
 posal (however honourable and undeserved) of one who is at least 
 not yet identified with him in his plan of action?" 
 
 "Fairly answered," said he; "and only confirms the opinion I 
 just now expressed, that you were virgin in the world. To relieve 
 you, therefore (to say nothing of saving the post), you shall give 
 your name only conditionally ; and if Lord Castleton objects, you 
 11. 12 
 
178 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 shall vacate. Not only this, but, if he approves and you remain 
 permanently in, 1 absolve you from ali obligation, which, as a man 
 of honour, you might think yourself under, to follow my lead 
 instead of Lord Castleton's. Indeed, I begin to think I am scarcely 
 separated from him in any of his views 5 and. though my personal 
 objections to unite with his government, in form, remain where 
 they were, yet upon the particular measure he refers to me, I should 
 have but one objection to make against it, besides the long journey, 
 in my state of heaith, that would be necessary to enable me to 
 support it." 
 
 I felt myself leap for joy at the mere prospect of this, and eagerly 
 asked what was his one objection ? 
 
 "The fear of the world," answered he; "not, as from your 
 countenance you perhaps think, that it should reconcile me to it, 
 but that I should hale it more. God knows I hale it enough, and 
 retain such people as Parrot and Juniper, whom I see there, climb- 
 ing the hill, merely to have something to laugh at, and keep me, 
 by that semblance of cheerfulness, from turning an absolute savage. 
 By the way, their visit is extremely mala propos, and I'll wager 
 that fellow Parrot, who is as inquisitive and gossipping as a village 
 barber, has heard you are here, and will never rest till he finds 
 out why." 
 
 Here I thought it but just to my old acquaintance to inform his 
 patron of my having met him at Alnwick, if only to account for his 
 knowledge that I was here. 
 
 " N' imported said the marquess; " he has no business to be 
 here except by appointment ; he has presumed, too, of late, more 
 upon the necessity I have for him in business than I choose, and 
 must have a rap of the knuckles." 
 
 "May I ask the character of his companion, " said I, " whom 
 he represented as so greatly inferior, that he said, nothing but your 
 lordship's want of society could make you tolerate him? " 
 
 "He is an impudent hound, " replied Lord Rochforl, " for, of the 
 two, Juniper is far the superior in real sense, though coarse and 
 abrupt in manner, more especially towards the lawyer himself, and 
 at the very moment when he thinks he has most shewn his supe- 
 riority. It diverts me to set one against the other 5 and would now, 
 but that we are better employed. Both are vulgar — -both parasites ; 
 Parrot tries to disguise — Juniper does not conceal it fParrol thinks 
 himself a gentleman — Juniper knows he is but a gauger. But to 
 return to our subject, I own that one objection I have to the world 
 is the fear I have of hating it more even than I do. 1 ' 
 
 " Fear not, my lord," I replied ; " for I will venture to affirm 
 that these thoughts are not really deserved. The court, I allow, has 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 179 
 
 treated you ill, but you are too good to visit the sins of the court on 
 the world at large. Return to it, and it will do you justice." 
 
 " Let us first see what Don Castielon will say to our letters," 
 replied he, " which you must now lose no time in writing." 
 
 This was true $ so at his dictation I wrote with hurried feelings 
 a paragraph on myself, as the ground of his wish for me to succeed 
 Mr. Courtall ; and a long letter of my own, being a sort of journal 
 of all that had occurred since I had been at the castle, and in par- 
 ticular the whole of my conversation with the. marquess, in all its 
 bearings, on the subject of his return. 
 
 Long before I had done, the auxiliaries, Parrot and Juniper, had 
 applied to the gate trumpet for admittance, and were told by a 
 message, in no very measured terms, through Simcoe, to employ 
 themselves in the garden till my lord had finished the business he 
 was upon. 
 
 Juniper obeyed by reposing himself in Simcoe's room; Parrot, 
 disdaining such abasement, demanded the last newspaper, with 
 which he amused himself on the parapet of the castle wall overlook- 
 ing the German Sea. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 of the strange companions the marquess had chosen in his retirement, and 
 the thraldom of Superiors who have intrusted secrets to inferiors. 
 
 Because that I familiarly, sometimes, 
 Do use you for my fool, and chat with you, 
 Your sauciness will jest upon my love, 
 And make a common of my serious hours. 
 "When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport, 
 But creep in crannies when he hides his beams. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Comedy of Errors. 
 
 On the admission of the illustrious associates, so important to his 
 happiness, that, as Parrot had told me, Lord Rochfort could not do 
 without them, I was curious (especially after what the marquess 
 had said Of them) to mark their reception. 
 
 My fellow-student exhibited himself very frankly as the enfant 
 de famille of the place— rather, perhaps, I might say, the major- 
 domo, prime minister, confidant, and groom of the chambers; in 
 one word — factotum. 
 
 The consciousness of this made him but ill bear the dishonour- 
 ing stigma conveyed to him through Simcoe,in the prohibition to 
 
j 80 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 enter till his chief sent for him. This I could see had affected him 
 not a little when he joined us, to which I also saw that my presence 
 had not a little contributed. 
 
 Our equality at Queen's would not. allow him to brook what he 
 held to be an indignity, which he seemed resolved to make up for 
 by a more than usual familiarity as to the ways and routine of the 
 castle, and in his behaviour to the lord of it. 
 
 To this the shrewd gauger was a most marked contrast. Like 
 SirPertinax, he seemed not able to stand upright in the presence 
 of the great man, but bowed at every word and every look-, and 
 " my lord marquess/' and " your lordship," was never off his 
 tongue. The tyranny, however, with which the lawyer pretended 
 to treat him, sharpened by the reception he had met with when he 
 most wished to shine, was evidently resented by the gauger, who 
 seemed only lying by for an opportunity to revenge himself. He 
 chuckled, therefore, at the marquess's answer to Parrot's first 
 address to him. 
 
 That glib gentleman, assuming an ease and familiarity which 
 surprised me the more because it was clearly by no means pleasing 
 to the noble lord he addressed, accosted him thus : — 
 
 " Having heard Mr. Clifford was here, and knowing how out of 
 humour you are with unexpected intruders, I thought you might 
 want a little assistance in receiving him, so Juniper and I came 
 up " 
 
 "To restore my good humour, I suppose," said Lord Rochfort, 
 dri^. " Upon my word, I am infinitely obliged by your pro- 
 tection of me." 
 
 " There now," said the gauger, " I telled you how it would be; 
 you see my lord marquess did not want none of your help, and 
 would rather have your room nor your company, especially as he 
 have got a real gentleman with him on business." 
 
 " Real gentleman! you booby," replied Parrot; " why, I 
 thought, on account of that very gentleman, I might be of the more 
 use, because Mr. Clifford and I were fellow-students at Oxford 5 
 and it's always pleasant to break formality by the mulual knowledge 
 people have of one another's history and habils, to say nothing of 
 old stories, jokes, and witticisms." 
 
 "Of the value of which/' said Lord Rochfort, still more drily, 
 " from the brilliant specimens I have long had of them, and par- 
 ticularly at this moment, it is impossible to doubt." 
 
 At this the gauger, who at least had wit enough to see when wit 
 could, or could not, be endured, seeing Parrot about to reply, 
 pulled him by the coat skirts, and in a not low whisper said, 
 t4 Coom, Parrot, doanty be so fond of talking, and shewing thy 
 parts; dost not see his lordship be busy, and don't want us this 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 181 
 
 morning? I tolled thee so, but thee would not believe me. Coom, 
 let us make our boo, and be ganging." 
 
 "Why, the business between Mr. Clifford and me," observed 
 the marquess, "is certainly sufficiently interesting to require no 
 addition from the wit of a Belford attorney. I am sorry, therefore 
 (though ineffably grateful), for the trouble you have taken to assist 
 my inexperience in receiving company." 
 
 " I am sure your lordship knows," replied Parrot, somewhat, 
 but not much, abashed, " that I can never think it trouble to be of 
 use to my friends." 
 
 " I am sure of it," returned the marquess, in the same dry tone ; 
 " fori am, and always shall be, ready to confess, that even without 
 a fee, 'if you were as tedious as a king, you could find it in your 
 heart to bestow it all on my lordship.' " 
 
 " By dad, you had it there," said Juniper, giggling, and bowing 
 to the lord of the castle, who could not help laughing outright, in 
 which I could as little help joining. 
 
 " I beg pardon," at last said the lawyer; " I only thought, hear- 
 ing that Mr. Clifford had come upon business, that, as your lord- 
 ship's attorney, I might be wanted 5 so here I am." 
 
 44 1 thank you most profoundly," returned the marquess-, " and 
 yet think I could be well content 4 to be my own attorney in this 
 case.' " 
 
 "Ah! now I see you are at your quotations again," replied Par- 
 rot, "and you know I never can stand you there." 
 
 " Nor anywhere else," interrupted the gauger, " for all that you 
 may think." 
 
 "My lord does not want you for a second," said Parrot, peevishly. 
 
 "Not against thee, certainly," replied Juniper. 
 
 " His lordship knows how to distinguish between us," rejoined 
 the attorney, with an air of contempt; "and, at any rate, is sure 
 of my readiness, on all occasions, to take his commands." 
 
 " No doubt 5 no doubt ; and charge them afterwards in your bill," 
 said the gauger — " He! He!" 
 
 Lord Rochfort, though amused almost to laughing at these hits 
 of the gauger, thought it necessary to come to the assistance of the 
 man of law, against the man of gin, though he did not much relieve 
 him when he observed, 
 
 44 My good Parrot, you are the most obliging of talking birds." 
 
 At which Juniper giggled aloud, and, bowing again and again to 
 the marquess, exclaimed, 
 
 44 Now that's so good of your lordship. Yes; certainly a Parrot 
 be a talking bird." 
 
 Parrot, though furious with his companion, became almost 
 disconcerted, and again said he only came in his capacity of attor- 
 
182 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 ney, in which, he added significantly, and as I thought, maliciously, 
 " Your lordship has al least found me useful at Newcastle, where 
 you sent me three days ago, and whence I only returned last night, 
 with the answers from Messieurs Surtees — which, by the way, I 
 ought to have reported at first— that (hey (here he affected to 
 whisper Lord Rochfort) could not honour any more of your " 
 
 " Impertinent blockhead," cried the marquess, in a sudden rage, 
 and slopping him 5 " is this impudence possible? You say you are 
 my attorney — you are much fitter to be the town crier. I dismiss 
 you from my service and concerns. Go, and return no more." 
 
 44 As you please, my lord," replied the lawyer, who felt that he 
 had the best house in Belford, and nobody to compete with him — 
 " as you please," said he, summoning up his courage, which had 
 been a little disconcerted at my presence, 44 and when I send in my 
 bill, I hope " 
 
 "Impudent cur, depart this instant," cried the marquess, in a 
 fit of passion which I did not think could belong to him. 
 
 u I telled you how it would be," said the gauger, softly changing 
 his tones as they both left the room. 
 
 44 Is not this intolerable?" exclaimed Lord Rochfort, when (hey 
 were gone. 44 To be bearded by such a reptile, an idiot, unworthy 
 to be trusted, though in a profession requiring all (rust. His inso- 
 lence, I fear, has made me forgel myself. I have to beg your 
 pardon and my own. But you know not, Mr. De Clifford, the 
 curse it is to be forced to rely on such base minds, whether as con- 
 fidants in business, or companions. How have I been mistaken in 
 supposing they would amuse my retirement! No; I retract all I 
 have said of the merits of my associates, and the preference I per- 
 suaded myself to shew them. It has almost tempted me to return 
 with you to the world, and even to court it, though I have called 
 myself le courtisan detrompe du monde." 
 
 I hailed this confession as a good augury of success for my 
 mission, and told him so; adding my astonishment at the compa- 
 nions he had condescended to adopt in exchange for those he had 
 repudiated, who, if not more honest or less selfish, had at least 
 better manners. 
 
 44 The sauciness, mixed with submission, of Juniper did not," 
 said I, 44 surprise me; but I own I was shocked at the familiarity 
 you permitted in that forward and conceited fellow-student of 
 mine." 
 
 44 1 have confessed," said Lord Rochfort, 44 that it was my own 
 fault; nor shall it occur again. Yet what am I to do? I have ne- 
 glected every one in the shape of a gentleman who has called upon 
 me in this Siberia, meaning to put up, and indeed to identify myself, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 183 
 
 with the natives. But I begin to believe, though I scarcely own it 
 to myself, that I am not made for Kamtschatka." 
 
 " Your lordship is made only for the world," answered I, "and 
 ought immediately to return to it, if only to shake off the imper- 
 tinence of such a troublesome coxcomb as Parrot, to say nothing 
 of his unworthiness as to trust." 
 
 "You say true/' answered the marquess, "and I will think 
 of it." 
 
 He then fell into a fit of musing, which, not being convenient to 
 indulge in company, he withdrew to his chamber above stairs, 
 which I heard him pacing for at least a quarter of an hour, when 
 I suppose he sat down, as it ceased. 
 
 Jt was something gained to have induced him even to think of 
 abandoning his retreat 5 though I was forced to confess that what 
 Lord Castleion's proposals, backed by my fine arguments, could 
 not effectually produce, was likely to be accomplished by a piece 
 of impertinence from a pragmatical coxcomb whom he despised. 
 In this he reminded me of a trait in the life of Lord Buckhursf, 
 first Earl of Dorset, who, being idle and extravagant, and forced 
 to borrow money of a scrivener, -was so disgusted and indignant at 
 being kept by him waiting too long before he would see him, that 
 he resolved to get rid of that thraldom by taking to business, which 
 he did so effectually, that, being very able, he succeeded Burleigh 
 as lord treasurer to Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 J longed, but dared not, to bring this anecdote before Lord 
 Rochfort. He, however, seemed to follow Lord Buckhursl's example 
 without knowing the story. 
 
 " This fellow," said he, upon rejoining me, " presumes to be of- 
 fensive, on the strength of knowing some of my affairs, and my having 
 employed him in pecuniary negotiations. But of all dependencies, 
 deliver me from that of being in the power of vulgar minds, who 
 think they have a secret which you wish to conceal. The scoundrel 
 shall be disappointed, for I will myself discover it. I will allow the 
 world to know, if it pleases, that I am embarrassed. If nothing else, 
 my seclusion in this old tower, and this frugal life, have taught me 
 that gold is not necessary for happiness, as gold itself had shewed 
 me before that it could not command success in our wishes. Could 
 I therefore with this spade discover a hidden treasure, like the real 
 Timon whom Castleton says I imitate, I would say with him, 
 
 ' Gome, damned earth, 
 Thou common whore of mankind, that putt'st odds 
 Among the rout of nations, I will make thee 
 Do thy right nature.' 
 
 In fact, I would bury it again, for fear it should tempt me again 
 to rebel against its Luc uses." 
 
184 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 For this I honoured him, and ventured to set before him how 
 much better it was to employ his talents in serving the stale, even 
 though every thing might not go according to his wishes, than 
 abandoning the world, as he had done, to be affronted by such a 
 coxcomb as Parrot. 
 
 As I was apologizing for this liberty, which I really felt to be 
 too great, he stopped me, and, with much kindness of manner, 
 told me he was only the more obliged to me. 
 
 44 No," said he; 44 having recovered my senses, such a represen- 
 tation ought to be the reverse of offensive, from you, however 
 lowering the behaviour of the fool who has left us. But I really 
 beg for time to look about me, for I feel I have a number of crude 
 notions that want setting in order. Do me the favour, therefore, to 
 leave me to myself till dinner-lime, and meanwhile Simcoe shall 
 shew you the way to the sea-shore, where the waves will afford 
 you room for meditation, with your mind, by no means unpro- 
 ductive. Till then, adieu." 
 
 At this, delivering me over to the attentions of Simcoe, whom 
 , he summoned by a bell which generally stood on the table, I left 
 him, under the charge of that civil domestic, hoping on my return 
 to find his reflections had turned to profit. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 GREAT THINGS FROM SMALL CAUSES. — THE EFFECTS OF VULGAR IMPERTINENCE ON A 
 HIGH MIND.' — THE MARQUESS YIELDS TO PERSUASION, OF "WHICH I REAP THE BENEFIT. 
 —I RETURN TO LONDON, WHERE, WITH MORE AND MORE PROSPECT OF ADVANCE- 
 MENT, I AM ONLY MORE DESPONDING ON THE SUBJECT OF BERTHA. 
 
 What your wisdom could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light. 
 
 Shakspeabe.— Much Ado about Nothing. 
 Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd. 
 
 As You Like It. 
 
 After we had passed the sort of esplanade that lies before Bel- 
 ford Tower, I began to explore, under the guidance of the faithful 
 Simcoe, a winding path, changing often into steps cut in the rock, 
 leading to the sea. 
 
 During the descent, it was evident that my guide paused at 
 particular turnings, in the hope of gaining information respecting 
 the recent interview between his lord and the worthies who had 
 just made their exit. 44 1 never knew my lord so loud in all his 
 life," said Mr. Simcoe. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 185 
 
 Finding this produced no comment, at another resting place, he 
 said he feared that something very queer had happened 5 for Mr. 
 Juniper had pressed his hand, much affected, and said, " fc I am 
 afraid, Mr. Simcoe, I shall never drink a glass of your warm punch 
 in your warm room again.' Something extraordinary must have 
 happened," continued the butler, for this to be j but provided it 
 takes my lord to town, or even only to Beaulieu, I shall not care. 
 May I be so bold, Sir, as to ask what happened? for lawyer Parrot 
 seemed on excessive high ropes, and swore that my lord would re- 
 pent the affront he had put upon him the longest day he had to live. 
 If not too free, Sir, may I lake the liberty of asking what was the 
 affront ? for though I have known my lord, once or twice in the 
 course of his life, knock a man down when in a passion, I never 
 knew him affront any person whatever." 
 
 " His lordship," said I, " certainly did not give this proof to 
 Mr. Parrot of abstaining from affronting him 5 but he dismissed 
 him from his service, not more gently than he deserved." 
 
 " I dare say," returned the butler; "for though Mr. Parrot 
 carries himself civil enough towards us, I have known him very peart 
 in speaking of and to his shooperiors, which I tell him is always 
 wrong, especially as he lives by them. In this case, too, if he has 
 talked to my lord's face what he has sometimes said of him behind 
 his back, he deserves hanging 5 for my lord, though not so rich as 
 he was, is still as generous as a prince. More's the pity 5 as, far 
 from thanking him, such people as Parrot, while they pocket his 
 money, say it is all to shew off as it were, and make the world 
 think he is not ruined, when he is • God forbid ! I suppose, how- 
 ever, from what has passed, we shall never see Mr. Parrot again." 
 
 ■ * I suppose so," replied 1 5 and having by this time reached the 
 strand, on which a fine rough flood tide was foaming in billows, I 
 allowed Mr. Simcoe to climb home again, meditating on his way 
 the important news I had communicated to him, while the sea 
 roared me into a sort of solemnity of thought. 
 
 For my own part, though there was nothing but what was per- 
 fectly respectful to his master in what Simcoe had said, I did not 
 approve his allowing himself to talk of him as he did to me, a com- 
 parative stranger ; and, from the conduct of the vulgar Parrot, which 
 made me recollect the maxim of that accomplished woman, Lady 
 Hungerford, that all vulgarity had something selfish in it, I made a 
 resolution for my future guidance, never to put myself in the power 
 of an inferior, whether in station or mind, or trust him with any 
 thing I wished not to have published to the world. 
 
 These thoughts and some others, which seldom left me, occupied 
 my solitary walk on the solitary strand that led to Belford. The 
 others may be guessed; for I had counted upon receiving that 
 
186 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 morning, in a letter from Granville ( which never came), an answer 
 to mine from York, requesting information on the mysterious visit 
 by Prince Adolphus to Foljambe Park. 
 
 All thought, however, was at length lost in the contemplation of 
 the magnificent billows, white with foarn, and thundering as they 
 approached nearer and nearer, devouring, as it were, the strand on 
 which I stood, and covering me at times with their spray. They 
 seemed the stupendous majesty of nature (for it had begun almost 
 to blow a storm), and engaged me till the sound of the great bell of 
 the castle, floating upon the wind, told me the hour of dinner was 
 near. This, in conformity with Lord Rochfort's new habits, was 
 three o'clock; and I made haste to rejoin him, not a little anxious 
 to know the result of his self-examination, As the dinner was, 
 however, going on the table, this could not be till that repast was 
 concluded ; which, being little like the London banquets where I 
 had formerly met him, did not take long. 
 
 Though we sat in full view of Apemantuss Grace, our dinner 
 was by no means confined to roots, as Apemantus recommended. 
 The fisheries on the coast supplied the freshest herrings ; Berwick 
 sant exquisite kipper'; and the moors, which looked so bleak and 
 dreary, besides well-flavoured mutton, gave us excellent and savoury 
 wild fowl. The cellars also in Grosvenor Square had not been per- 
 mitted to retain the whole of their treasures. 
 
 When I complimented my noble host upon all this, he said, 
 " Though I fled from man, I did not think myself bound to fly from 
 what was meant for the use of man. This is a part of the philosophy 
 of retirement which I neither did, nor wished to understand; and 
 though I admired and approved Apemantus's Grace, it was always 
 with the exception of the intimation, ' I eat root.' Indeed, so little 
 was I a convert to ihat part of it, that, to the shame of all hermits 
 be it spoken, 1 endeavoured to seduce my French cook, Monsieur 
 Dumain, to stay with me here ; but after surveying the place, and 
 bestowing many sacristies upon it, he demanded his conge, though 
 I offered to raise his wages. I was glad of it ; for my seclusion, and 
 dinners like this, soon taught me that a French cook, that requisite 
 of fashion, was, like fashion itself, only another humbug among 
 the many that deceive the world." 
 
 " But, now," said his lordship, after a slight pause — " now for 
 your mission. I have taken my resolution upon it, though a little 
 ashamed of the main reason that has led to it. In a word, I do not 
 like to think that an alarm to my pride, and a disgust at imperti- 
 nence, have effected more in removing, if not my prejudices them- 
 selves, at least their consequences, than sober reason. This morn™ 
 
 1 Dried salmon. 
 
OR, THE COW ST A NT MAN. 187 
 
 ing I had resolved only to send my proxy to Lord Castleton, and to 
 remain here myself. I now see that to remain here, with the jack- 
 anapes I have dismissed for a companion ( to say nothing of the 
 danger of confiding in him as a law adviser), is impossible 5 and as 
 there is no alternative, I am ready to return to town. To do so, 
 shorn of my beams as I must be, has, I own, been my stumbling- 
 block 5 but the real philosophy which my solitude, by making me 
 better acquainted with myself, has generated, has overcome that. 
 I think with you, that a peer, not yet in the decline of his age, has 
 no right to renounce his duty by retiring, especially if he retire in 
 a pet, which perhaps I did. The worst is, that, in all probability, 
 it is a pel that sends me back again : but thus are we governed j 
 such is human nature : it was a pet, you know, that enabled Troy 
 to hold out so many years; it was a pel that produced the Iliad" 
 
 "Pet, or sober reflection," replied I, overjoyed, "I hail the 
 decision as the best thing that could happen for the country 5 and I 
 am sure Lord Castleton will, as far as he is concerned, give you 
 carte blanche. " 
 
 " Hold," said he 5 " not a word of that. It will spoil all the grace 
 of the thing, if there can be any thing of grace in only doing what 
 we think is right. I approve of Lord Castleton's measures, and I 
 will support them because I approve \ but I will not be paid for it. 
 I am not paid by the nation for doing its business in the House of 
 Lords 5 1 will not be paid by Lord Castleton for there doing Ihe bu- 
 siness of the nation. There is a still stronger reason. It cannot be 
 concealed that my fortune is hurt. If it was not by others, it would 
 be revealed by the officious blockhead I have dismissed. It shall 
 never be said that I took office to retrieve my affairs. Tell this to 
 Castleton, who, I know, will understand my conduct, though no 
 one else may." 
 
 1 was really so overcome with this noble frankness, this genero- 
 sity of spirit, that it was some lime before I could reply. 
 
 It is unnecessary to relate the consequent steps taken before I left 
 the castle. I will only add upon the subject, that the marquess acted 
 up to his professions 5 realizing all expectations 5 and, from his per- 
 severing disinterestedness, depriving even party calumny of a pre- 
 text to impute a sordid motive to him. Sourkrout attempted it by 
 putting the world upon their guard, exclaiming weekly, " We 
 shall see" — " the mare's nest will be found out" — u old birds not 
 to be caught with chaff"—" all is not gold that glitters and other 
 like elegant phrases, all denoting the chaste and delicate style of 
 this champion of liberty and regulator of the public taste. 
 
 But, unhappily, he was disappointed, for the marquess continued 
 a powerful support of the government without office 3 which so en- 
 raged the patriotic and virtuous editor, that he hinted pretty broadly, 
 
188 
 
 DK CLIFFORD', 
 
 that he had good reason lo believe the marquess enjoyed in secret 
 a very considerable pension, either out of (he secret service or the 
 privy purse. 
 
 It may be supposed that I wrote a precise delail of all my opera- 
 lions at Belford Tower to Lord Castleton 5 and the whole scene of 
 that romantic place, the varied interests it presented in viewing the 
 turns of Lord Rochforl's vehement but noble character, together 
 with its crowning event, made my visit to it the most pleasing as 
 well as exciting occurrence of my public life. 
 
 To return to my narrative : I was gratified before I left Nor- 
 thumberland, by the most unqualified approbation of all my pro- 
 ceedings, accompanied with a prospect held out lo me which would 
 have left little in the way of fortune to desire. For as yet I had been 
 only private secretary to my patron but the death of Mr. Mansfield, 
 the chief secretary, having made a vacancy not only in that office, 
 but a considerable sinecure in the colonies, Lord Castleton told me 
 at once, that I might depend upon the nomination to both. 
 
 As this, however, was evidently the effect of having overvalued 
 my service in respect loLord Rochfort, with more scrupulous feel- 
 ings than many old stagers would have thought prudent, I sat down 
 to explain to Lord Castleton, that I owed my success more to acci- 
 dent than ability. I therefore related to him the whole history of 
 the effect of Parrot's insolence upon that nobleman, as greatly aid- 
 ing, if not solely procuring, the result which ensued. 
 
 Lord Castleton, with all the liberality that marked him, wrote me 
 for answer that my self-denial only enhanced, not only my service, 
 but his wish to reward it; he had therefore ordered the patents to 
 be made out against my return. 
 
 Behold me then, henceforward, not only with more power, but 
 with an immense increase of income, half of it for life. 
 
 The first of the joyful impressions which this made upon me was, 
 that it brought me somewhat, though but a little, nearer that fasci- 
 nating dream, which still haunted me, spite of fate. But this was 
 like a momentary gleam of sunshine in winter ; for besides that any 
 good fortune of mine could only bring our situations, not our 
 hearts, nearer together (being wholly ignorant of her feelings 
 towards me, even if she were free), I had been told, on authority, 
 that if I had acquired the whole estate of Bardolfe Castle, peerage 
 and all, never could I pretend to her whom I now thought the be- 
 trothed Bertha. 
 
 This was only confirmed by the continued silence of Granville, in 
 regard to my letter from York. 
 
 The tidings of my prosperity, however, I communicated to my 
 benefactors, Folhergill and Manners, and the good family at Bar- 
 dolfe, to whom it occasioned wonder as well as pleasure, for none 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 189 
 
 of them could fancy, much less believe, that lt I'young doctor, 1 ' 
 when he set out on a journey on fool, could have been destined to 
 such good fortune as a place for life, and a seat in Parliament. One 
 unlooked-for satisfaction was added to it, that it made my good, 
 quiet, and retiring father hold his head up higher than was his wont 
 at the grand jury at York • but this par parenthese. 
 
 On arriving in town, I wanted much to make me completely 
 happy. I found myself involved in the novel business of an election; 
 for Lord Castleton had gladly fallen in with Lord Rochforl's pro- 
 posal, that I should stand on his interest for the borough of Win- 
 (erton 5 and so close had the time run, that I had scarcely an hour 
 to give a farther account of my mission to my chief. However, the 
 feared opposition not taking place, eight and forty hours sufficed to 
 class me among the Commons of England 5 for in those days the 
 interference of a peer in an election was not very scrupulously in- 
 quired into. And yet, as I never gave a vole which I would not 
 have given had I been elected by a hundred thousand voices, and 
 supported the measures I did, because I approved them, I have seen 
 nothing in the virtuous, uncorrupt, and incorruptible times since 
 ( in which the purest reform ha«s prevented the return of any but 
 the purest patriots ), to make me feel that I did not love my coun- 
 try and act for its interests as honestly as they. 
 
 The benefit, however, which the stale has received by this most 
 virtuous change, from the universal corruption, folly and turbu- 
 lence of former times, to the universal wisdom, honesty, and una- 
 nimity of the present, is loo clear to stop the current of these me- 
 moirs in order to prove it. But this also par parenthese. 
 
 I had now attained to the summit of the ambition of many a man 
 beyond me in age — office, revenue, and Ihe honours of Parliament; 
 yet the events passing at Foljambe Park still occupied my principal 
 interests. Granville had never noticed my urgent letter 5 my first 
 inquiry, therefore, was after him ; my next, Lady Hungerford. In 
 regard to the first, I was more than ever anxious to see him from his 
 neglect ( unkind, as I thought it ) of my urgent request for informa- 
 tion respecting the report of Bertha's marriage. It was now ten 
 days since I wrote to him so urgently on the subject, from the 
 coffee-room at York. 
 
 To my concern, though not my wonder, I found that both Gran- 
 ville and Lady Hungerford were gone to Foljambe Park; he, al- 
 most immediately after I left town, and Lady Hungerford, only the 
 day before I returned. 
 
 My heart sank as Lord Castleton told me this. Alas ! thought I, 
 they have gone to attend the nuptials of the young princess; he as 
 counselter to the family and near kinsman, she as the dearest friend 
 of the bride. 
 
190 DE CLIFFORD 
 
 Resolved to heroism, as I thought myself, I own the news shocked 
 me. I grew pale and sick, and I thought Lord Castleton eyed me 
 with peculiar curiosity ; but I should have been equally affected had 
 a porter in the streets regarded me with earnestness, on the prin- 
 ciple of a guilty conscience. 
 
 My anxiety threw me off my guard, and I fear Lord Castleton 
 discovered me. For I could not help saying, though my voice 
 faltered, 44 I suppose they have gone to attend the wedding." 
 
 44 What wedding?" asked Lord Castleton; 44 I heard of none. 
 They mentioned none to me." 
 
 " Not of Miss Hastings," said I, " with Prince Adolphus of Saxo- 
 ny, her cousin ? I suppose, as a minister, you saw him in town 
 some days ago?" 
 
 44 No 5 he passed through, without being presented." 
 
 44 Aye, on the wings of love," observed I. " No wonder ;"and 
 I faltered more and more. 
 
 44 You speak like what you are," said Lord Castleton, good- 
 humouredly, 44 a warm young man. Prince Adolphus, I am in- 
 formed, is Mr. Hastings 1 nephew, but I have heard of no nuptials." 
 
 44 And yet the account must be true." 
 
 44 What account?" 
 
 44 That in the World newspaper, that he was engaged to his 
 cousin , and had therefore proceeded to Yorkshire without stopping. ' 1 
 
 44 'Tis strange, if this be so," said Lord Castleton, 44 and Gran- 
 ville or Lady Hungerford knew it, that neither of them should have 
 mentioned it." 
 
 44 It might be a secret," returned I, " and they the confidants 
 ofit." 
 
 44 You have at least settled it in your own mind," returned the 
 earl, 44 and the prince must be lucky, for he is as poor as Job, and 
 the lady, Honora tells me, is rich, and not only eminently beauti- 
 ful, but still more lovely in character." 
 
 44 Lady Hungerford," answered I, 44 is seldom deceived in her 
 judgment of her friends." 
 
 44 The more happy for you," replied my patron, smiling. 
 
 Here the conversation ended, and, after a few business topics, 
 I was allowed to seek repose, if I could, in the solitude of my lodg- 
 ings. When there, I turned the matter a thousand ways in my mind. 
 That the marriage was about to take place, every thing conspired 
 to prove. Public report uncontradicted — the visit of the two the 
 most likely to attend it, not only from connection and friendship, 
 but as having been long the trusted depositaries of the secret; — for 
 of this I had no doubt. Why, however, it should have been a se- 
 cret at all, or lord Castleton not apprized of it when it was to be 
 one nolonger, weighed a little, though but a little, on the other side. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 19f 
 
 No ; I had no consolation ; though if I had had it as to the instant 
 marriage, what it would ultimately have availed me was a question 
 I did not fail to ask myself. Still I wished it determined ; and would 
 rather have been even present at the ceremony, than be lorn to 
 pieces as I was by the anxieties of suspense. The next morning, 
 therefore, and two or three after that, I ransacked every newspaper 
 for the expected intelligence, and even made a daily journey to a 
 city coffee-house, where I had been told the York county papers 
 were taken, to satisfy my curiosity. 
 
 Lord Castleton wondered at my unusual eagerness about his post, 
 and my impatience till all his packets were opened; particularly 
 when he discovered, as he soon did, that this great interest was all 
 occasioned by an expectation of his hearing from Lady Hunger- 
 ford. My own disappointment as to Granville, to my annoyance, 
 remained, nor did I like to intrude upon him again \ in short, my 
 uneasiness grew unbearable, as is always the case with protracted 
 suspense. 
 
 At last the well-watched knock of the postman produced a letter 
 in Granville's hand, and the Ferry-bridge post-mark. Its contents 
 were remarkable. 
 
 " I did not answer you immediately," said he, " for I myself, 
 though here, was too lillle informed to resolve your question 5 nor 
 would I write now, but that I know you to be so sensitive a gentle- 
 man, that I shall have a quarrel a outrance on my hands if I do 
 noisay something. What to say is the question, for what can I say 
 when I know nothing correctly? Surmises I could give in plenty, 
 but could not answer for their truth. I may tell you, however, that 
 there are no preparations for a wedding, nor do I know if any are 
 in contemplation. Meantime, what is certain is, the severe illness 
 of Mr. Hastings, who is confined to his bed, which is anxiously at- 
 tended both by the prince and Bertha. You did not judge ill of the 
 handsome Adolphus when you pronounced him so fine a fellow. 
 (This gave me a severe pang.) 
 
 " As to engagements, I have certainly heard of them (and I will 
 no longer conceal from you, on sufficient authority) j but how they 
 got into the papers, except by dealing with the devil (which I be- 
 lieve all editors do), I don't know. Yet there is no outward indi- 
 cation of one at present ; though there is certainly great intimacy 
 between the cousins, for Bertha does not refuse herself to his atten- 
 tions 5 and, on his part, his respect for her seems always so pro- 
 found in her presence, as to prevent his shewing his agreeable qua- 
 lities-, for, out of it, he is really excellent company. 
 
 " This is all I know. If any one knows more, it is Lady Hunger- 
 ford, to whom, before she arrived here, there had been frequent 
 letters from the supposed princess elect." 
 
192 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 "Let me not conclude without felicitating you on the accession 
 you have made both to your reputation, station, and fortune. A seat 
 in Parliament and two thousand a-year, half of it by patent for life, 
 make you a bon parti for any damsel, however high. Never forget, 
 therefore, what I long ago told you, that there is more than one 
 Bertha in the world. 1 ' 
 
 44 When I do/' said I, as I finished reading, 44 may my right 
 hand forget her cunning." And will it be believed, that what Gran- 
 ville thus threw out respecting a bon parti actually made me direct 
 my thoughts towards this forbidden land, with a sort of elevation, 
 spite of all caution to the contrary, and spile even of the present si- 
 tuation of affairs. Oh, youth! youth! delightful with hope, and ir- 
 repressible by fear ! — what is not thy value ? 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, I was obliged to come to a sober exa- 
 mination of the case. Whatever might be the situation as to en- 
 gagement, previous to the handsome foreigner's arrival, it was clear 
 that they must have now come to mutual understanding, for Bertha 
 LC did not refuse herself' to his attentions,"'' and in her presence 
 his respect for her was so profound as to check his natural spirits. 
 What greater proof could I have ? 
 
 I would have given my new appointment to have been allowed to 
 consult Lady Hungerford, whose gloomy assurance (never forgot- 
 ten), that if I was even Lord Bardolfe, or Lord Clifford himself, I 
 could not succeed, was now remembered in greater force than ever. 
 I was too vain, perhaps, in thinking that I had some place in Ber- 
 tha's regard, and would not believe that the impossibility de- 
 nounced was personal. It therefore could only be occasioned by 
 this engagement:, the existence of which was now actually not 
 denied by Granville, though he hung a cloud over, at the same 
 lime that he revealed it. How much better, therefore, for me if she 
 were actually married : for, while she was single, it seemed too 
 clearly proved that I was incurable. Granville's allusion to a bon 
 parti did not make the contrary more likely. 
 
 On the other hand, the announcement of Mr. Hastings' illness 
 was cause of much speculation. If he died (and how tottering had 
 been his health), what more reasonable, more wise, or more likely, 
 than that his daughter should seek protection from one of her near- 
 est relatives, who could give her the highest rank and dignity, 
 while she, a great heiress, enriched him with the wealth he wanted 
 to support tl\em ? 
 
 Oh ! thought I, that Fothergill or Manners were here to guide 
 me, for how little am I able to guide myself ! 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 OF THE CHANGE IN LORD ROCHFORT ON HIS RETURN TO THE WORLD. 
 
 The Gods are witness, 
 Ne'er did poor steward wear a truer grief 
 For his undone lord, than mine eyes for you. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Timon of Athens. 
 
 Happy is your grace, 
 That can translate the stubbornness of fortune 
 Into so quiet and so sweet a stile. 
 
 As You Like it. 
 
 I resume my account of the Marquess of Rochfort. I trust the 
 reader is as interested as I was myself to observe what would be his 
 conduct on returning to the world. He was no common-place cha- 
 racter, and wherever he was would exhibit a life of his own. 
 
 His return was hailed by his political friends, of course, but also 
 by all others, many of whom thought the comparison which had 
 been made of him to Timon would still hold — that he had discovered 
 gold in the recesses of his northern castle, and that they might ex- 
 pect a renewal of that prodigality by which they had so often be- 
 nefited. 
 
 They were disappointed. He gave the closest attention to busi- 
 ness in the House of Peers, where he often spoke with effect, to the 
 great advantage of his friends in the ministry 5 but he no longer 
 kept open house, or laid himself out for popular applause. To imi- 
 tate Chatham, and force the closet by riding into it on the shoulders 
 of the people, was given up as chimerical-, yet to gain it by the or- 
 dinary methods of obsequious homage was disdained as much as 
 ever ; and, feeling indignant at what he thought the ill-usage of 
 former friends and followers, he fell back upon himself, shining in 
 public business, but maintaining a dignified reserve in his private 
 demeanour which nothing broke in upon. His acquaintance, there- 
 fore, far from that indiscriminate concourse which had adminis- 
 tered formerly to his pride, and to expectations which had been 
 frustrated by what he thought and called treachery, were now con- 
 tracted to a few — the very few whom, though men of the world, 
 he considered honest. 
 
 At the head of these was Lord Castleton, who with Granville, 
 and sometimes myself, seemed the companions he preferred. I 
 11. 13 
 
194 
 
 IMS CLIFFORD 5 
 
 know not whether he was happy, but he was certainly less ascetic, 
 and he was at least true to the disinterested resolution he had taken 
 of declining office, lest his motives for returning should be sus- 
 pected • — for his rival, the duke, having retired from the cabinet, 
 and his place being offered him, he declined it, though his fortune 
 was at nurse and his means much required it. 
 
 The cool, discriminating judgment of his friend Lord Castleton 
 remonstrated against this, as an unnecessary and undeserved sacri- 
 fice of himself to public prejudice, which he ought to be above ; 
 and Lord Castleton was right. Yet if health and evident ease of mind, 
 apparent in his looks, his manners, and his conversation, all indi- 
 cating peace with himself, were the result of this determination, I 
 cannot think that Lord Rochfort was wrong. 
 
 The observing Mr. Simcoe was so struck with the alteration, that 
 for some time after their return from their rough abode in the north 
 he always accosted me when I visited the marquess, with a "Lord, 
 Sir, what a blessing it was when you found us out at that queer old 
 tower. My lord seems his own man again. Indeed (though he does 
 not give so many dinners, and I have much less to do here than at 
 Belford), he's a better man than ever he was." 
 
 For my own part, I rejoiced almost as much as Mr. Simcoe him- 
 self, for I could not help loving the marquess for his affability to 
 me } perhaps the more for his sternness to everybody else. At first, 
 therefore, I was grieved to see him shut up in a house, once the 
 favourite abode of gaiety and magnificence, now converted into a 
 solitude, and himself the hermit of it. 
 
 The motive, however (summed up in his love of independence), 
 for withdrawing himself from his former companions (I mean not 
 his followers, whom he now detested for their ingratitude, but), his 
 equals, gilded his retreat, and his manner of carrying it into effect 
 displayed all the vehement character that belonged to him. 
 
 I learnt much of this from his solicitor, Mr. Fountain, with 
 whom I was thrown into a sort of intimacy by the election at Win- 
 terton, at which place, as indeed everywhere else, save and except 
 the northern regions, which were so happily administered by the 
 illustrious Parrot, he was an active, skilful agent, or rather I may 
 say a confidential friend. This gentleman, the opposite to Parrot in 
 every thing, whether as to professional knowledge, or the extraor- 
 dinary common sense, cool judgment, and even temper which dis- 
 tinguished him, wound up all his character with, or rather founded 
 it upon, a warmth and simplicity of heart, and a disinterestedness 
 as to pelf, which made him the wonder as well as the honour of his 
 profession. So much so, that he alone would balance all the ad- 
 verse opinions which the examples of too many unworthy members 
 of that profession have created in regard to (hem as a whole ; and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 195 
 
 I may safely say, after coursing through almost every division of 
 society, that, if he was not more just than all others, he was 
 
 " E'en as just a man 
 As e'er my conversation cop'd withall." 
 
 Happy indeed was Lord Rochfort, (as happy indeed is every one) 
 who, in an adviser always at his side, possesses one who unites the 
 clearest professional skill, with the most disinterested attachment of 
 a friend. Such was Mr. Fountain who had done all he could to 
 keep the marquess in the right path, and was as grieved as Flami- 
 nius himself ', when he saw his reckless advance to ruin. For he 
 was perfectly alive to his high qualities, and esteemed and loved the 
 better parts of his character, particularly, he said, his contempt for 
 the rascals who had profited by his eccentricities to undo him. 
 
 Hence there was always open war between Fountain and the 
 usurers, whose scandalous arts, roguery, and impudence combined, 
 he always did his utmost to expose and defeat ; and though he could 
 not induce Lord Rochfort to do himself common justice by them, 
 and his refusal to do so cost him thousands, yet he could not help 
 admiring the motives which prompted the sacrifice. 
 
 " For though they had undone him," said Mr. Fountain to me, 
 " I observed that to think of their power over him gave him far 
 more disgust and self-reproach than the loss of all the money out of 
 which they had cheated him. I was with the marquess one day," 
 he added, "when Scrape, the scrivener, 4 an exceeding knave,' 
 who had often raised money for him, brought in his account, 
 amounting to 20,000/. Would you believe that of this sum, what 
 reached the marquess's pocket was 5,000/.? Shocked at this, he re- 
 monstrated. The fellow, who had been always meanly reverential 
 till he got him into his net, grew saucy, and, far from relaxing, de- 
 fied him. For he had bound him by special securities, and coolly 
 now told him if he chose law, he might go into court if he pleased. 
 Lord Rochfort felt the disgrace of this in his very soul 5 and though 
 I interposed," said Fountain, " and told him that Chancery would 
 relieve him from an imposition of 400 per cent., 'No,' said he, 
 ' the scoundrel knows his advantage ; he knows that his name stinks 
 so, that I shrink from mine being associated with it, even to save 
 10,000/. .No; I dare not go to law with him, though I should suc- 
 ceed : let the beast be paid , but do you hear, Sir, get you out of the 
 room as fast as you can, lest you be kicked down stairs.' Lord 
 Rochfort," proceeded Fountain, "broke up the remaining part of 
 his establishment in consequence, and continues the recluse he is ? 
 till the money is retrieved." 
 
 1 Steward of Timon. 
 
1% 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ', 
 
 I found that the marquess had now done so some months, and 
 would be obliged to do so many more. Yet he was more cheerful, 
 Lord Castleton told me, than he had ever known him in his most 
 palmy days, when thousands, by courting his nod, accelerated his 
 comparative ruin. To be sure, it obliged him to live the life of a 
 recluse in the very heart of the world 5 at which I took the liberty 
 of wondering-, but he defended it, and declared to me, in confiden- 
 tial conversations, that he never was happier-, for he never felt him- 
 self in such possession of his mind, or of so fair and just a judg- 
 ment of mankind. " Crowds," said he, " no longer knock at my 
 door 5 but those who do, I can depend upon 5 and one good attends 
 me, worth all, and more than all, I have relinquished — I see the 
 world as it is 5 I am no longer its dupe • no longer in a false posi- 
 tion. " 
 
 Upon this subject he was sometimes fond of expatiating, and 
 would then honour me with his confidence. " I have run the round 
 of life," said he to me one day j " I have travelled abroad and at 
 home, and revelled, I fear, in pleasure, little restrained by pru- 
 dence. I have been the gayest of the gay : I have been ambitious, 
 and, with the country, though not the court, successful. In earlier 
 times I loved to distraction, and my love was returned. I have 
 been rich as well as poor — lived with nobles and wits— the highest 
 statesmen — the most successful of generals — the most praised of 
 authors — all the best names of Britain. I have listened with delight 
 to eloquence in the senate, myself a number, and not an obscure 
 one. I have been even an author, and not damned. In short, I be- 
 lieve I have travelled the whole circle of human pursuits, with pas- 
 sions equal to the most passionate. I have, in fact, fed upon excite- 
 ment, and the hey-day at sixty seems yet not totally over. And yet 
 I can safely say that no hour of my life has been so intensely sweet 
 as when, though under this cloud of fortune, shutting out the 
 world, I have feasted alone, in this cabinet, upon meditations 
 prompted either by my own thoughts or the thoughts of others, in 
 the books you see around me. 
 
 "Thought, alone, is happiness, when not melancholy. Its free 
 current, whatever its subject, is to the mind what exercise is to the 
 body : but when prompted by a feeling of content and unruffled 
 nerves, it becomes the health of the soul, and generates a grateful 
 piety to heaven, such as I am ashamed to say the greatest seeming 
 prosperity never produced. Can I then want society, even if I had 
 not the few friends I value about me ? No ; for I now converse bel- 
 ter with the mighty dead, than when tormented with the mighty 
 living. What wonder, then, if I love being alone, especially as the 
 place where I am so, prevents it from ever growing wearisome; as 
 the moment I am saturated with it, the remedy is at hand, and the 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 197 
 
 world at my door? In fact, I find the alternation of business and 
 leisure to be the secret of happiness; useful business, and well- 
 employed leisure, or, as Rousseau calls it, 'judicious inaction.' My 
 inaction, I trusl, is at least not injudicious ; for what more interest- 
 ing, particularly to an old man who has been tossed about in the 
 world, than to bring his experience into play for the discovery of 
 truth? This, I can safely say, whether in the streets, or my study, 
 is now my employment, and that 
 
 ' Quid verum atque decens, euro et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum / " 
 
 I congratulated him upon this, and said he was, I thought, more 
 enviable than ever he had been; yet could not help expressing 
 wonder that, being single, he continued in such loneliness as so 
 vast a house must now appear to him. I ventured to ask even if he 
 would not be more cheerful in a smaller mansion? 
 
 His answer was characteristic, though not very consistent with 
 his new-found philosophy. 
 
 " I see your meaning," said he, at first knitting his brow ; but, 
 soon recovering, he went on. " You think I have no longer a right 
 to a palace, not being able to fill it as usual. But why not, if it 
 please me, and such be my humour ? You will say, I ought to profit 
 by what I cannot enjoy, and let it for a palace's rent; which, in- 
 deed, I could do. But never shall the finger of men I contemn 
 point at me as the profligate who has been forced to quit his family 
 mansion. To be sure, it is no longer brilliant with sunshine in the 
 day, or lamps at night, for most of the rooms are shut up ; but I can 
 now do what I could not do before — illumine whatever place I am 
 in with my own thoughts ; thoughts for which I am all the better, 
 instead of those others which formerly did any thing but enlighten 
 me. I exemplify, therefore, what is so sublimely said by Milton, 
 
 ' He that has light within his own clear breast, 
 May sit i' the centre and enjoy bright day ; 
 But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, 
 Benighted walks under the mid-day sun : 
 Himself is his own dungeon.' " 
 
 Eccentric, and perhaps inconsistent, as this conduct was, it was 
 impossible not to respect Lord Rochfort for pursuing it. 
 But, turn we to other matters. 
 
198 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A CHANGE IN THE PROPERTY OF MR. HASTINGS. — I HAVE AN INTERESTING CONVERSA- 
 TION WITH LADY HUNGERFORD. — 'THE MYSTERY REGARDING BERTHA AND HER COUSIN 
 NOT CLEARED, 
 
 You have seen and proved a fairer form of fortune 
 Than that which is to approach. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 Doubting things go ill, often hurts more 
 Than to be sure they do«— Cymbeline. 
 
 About this time an event fell out which greatly affected the for- 
 tune of Mr. Hastings. I mentioned, I believe, that much of his in- 
 come, or at least of its redundancy, consisted in West India pro- 
 perty. An old country gentleman in Yorkshire cannot well look 
 after plantations across the Atlantic ; and, accordingly, Mr. Hastings, 
 like many other great proprietors, depended upon a great agent to 
 manage the concern. This agent just now failed to an immense 
 amount. It ruined many, and, as I have said, greatly affected Mr, 
 Hastings. 
 
 But it would have been fortunate if this had been all; for, one 
 cause of the failure was, that at this lime the island of Barbadoes, 
 where all his fine property was situated, was desolated by one of 
 those hurricanes which have so often ruined the greatest West 
 India estates. Most of the plantations were destroyed outright : few 
 houses escaped utter destruction, and none without damage. Many 
 persons perished under the ruins, and more were driven into the 
 sea. Above five thousand people lost their lives during this fright- 
 ful catastrophe; and the property annihilated was said to amount 
 to a million. 
 
 So great and general a blow could not pass without involving 
 every family connected with the island, and of course Mr. Hastings.; 
 whose losses, between the hurricane and his agent's failure, were 
 computed at above 100,000/. 
 
 Thus are we sometimes visited by a mysterious and inscrutable 
 Providence, to whose decrees, all we have to do is to submit with 
 resignation. This Mr. Hastings did, with the same piety which 
 made him so submissive io Heaven's will, when visited by the loss 
 of his son, 
 
 When this was first communicated to ine — which it was by Lord 
 Caslleton — (for so great a destruction, being almost national, had 
 
OR, THE CONST /V NT MAN. 199 
 
 been the subject of special despatches to the government), my blood 
 ran cold, my flesh creeped, and I thought of the injury to this high 
 family, but particularly of Bertha's altered prospects, with an afflic- 
 tion beyond any I could have felt had it been my own. 
 
 And yet how nobly did she bear it! Her chief and almost only 
 care, as Granville told me in a long letter, which, at my most 
 urgent entreaty, he wrote to relieve my anxiety, was how to soften 
 it to her father, whose rapidly declining health might make such 
 tidings critical, and prevent all hope of recovery. 
 
 As, however, the matter could not be kept from him, it was broke 
 to him by degrees. Indeed, the whole extent of the injury was not 
 at first known, and Bertha herself was not acquainted with it. 
 When it was, and post after post brought the account of fresh 
 losses, it was then that all the charm of her character, both for 
 firmness and softness, displayed itself with a lustre which few could 
 imitate. 
 
 In this she was greatly supported by the presence of her beloved 
 friend and adviser, Lady Hungerford, who luckily was on the spot 
 to console her. Granville, too, gave himself up to his uncle, and 
 was of essential service to him by his advice, and assistance in 
 business; and the prince cousin, I was told, shewed himself in the 
 most amiable light, by the warm and delicate attentions which he 
 paid to both his relations, under this their distress. 
 
 My heart envied the prince for this more than for all his other 
 advantages. Happy man ! thought I, who can now shew his real 
 worth, by proving the disinterestedness of his duty and love, and 
 confirm all the influence which his accomplishments have enabled 
 him to acquire. 
 
 Partly by these attentions from his friends, partly from his own 
 frame of mind, in which there was not only an innate piety, as has 
 been formerly noticed, but a secret vigour, which uniform pros- 
 perity had rather suspended than suppressed, Mr. Hastings was 
 enabled to bear his reverses with dignified composure ; and Bertha, 
 except for his sake, apparently bore them with entire indifference. 
 
 " We have yet this dear place left," said she, " from which it 
 was always unpleasant to us to stir; we have still its gardens and 
 flowers, and the village, and the poor blessing us. Why, then, 
 ought we to quarrel with fortune for confining us to the spot on 
 earth where we most wish to remain? If the sun would but come 
 out, and you, my dear father, get strong enough to let me drive 
 you abroad as usual, to enjoy it, why should storms thousands of 
 miles off affect us?" 
 
 Mr. Hastings, upon these occasions, would kiss Bertha, and her 
 eyes would sparkle at it, and shed new light upon all around (for a 
 while upon her father himself), and that would make her still more 
 
200 DE CLIFFORD *, 
 
 pleased. Nor would she allow her pleasure to be checked when 
 he would observe, as he seemed sometimes forced to do, that 
 Foljambe alone would not support the pleasures of Foljambe. 
 
 " And yel," she would reply, looking at the books and her mu- 
 sical instruments, " these are not expensive enjoyments; and these 
 still less," throwing up the window, and inhaling the scent of the 
 flowers. " But there is the sun himself coming out to reproach us 
 for thinking we can wanl any thing when we have him." 
 
 "All this," said Granville, in writing this account, "would 
 affect us, and nobody more than the prince, who would hold up his 
 hands in ecstasy, and exclaim, ' Dieu! quel temperament ange- 
 UqueP And then he would look intently at her, and kiss her 
 hand." 
 
 But the exertion of Bertha generally ended in a fit of lowness 
 afterwards, when alone with Lady Hungerford, in which, however, 
 she thought only of her father, not of herself. " If he is but spared 
 to us," she would say, " how little shall we feel the want of what 
 is lost! " 
 
 " I am very well aware," said Granville, in concluding this 
 account, " of the imprudence I commit towards you, for it will 
 certainly not contribute to your cure, which, however, is as 
 necessary as ever. But not only it is not easy to withstand your 
 entreaties, but in informing you of the state of things here under 
 this terrible worldly calamity, I think it almost a duty (I certainly 
 have pleasure in it) to do this justice to my admirable cousin, who, 
 if she had not done so before, would win the hearts of everybody 
 around her." 
 
 u As she has mine," said I, throwing the letter from me in an 
 agony of feeling, which yet I could not define, so compounded 
 was it at once of the most tender admiration, jealousy, and despair. 
 
 That the happy Adolphus should admire the sweet excellence he 
 courted, and which it was plain now was to crown his wishes, could 
 neither surprise nor distress me; but that he should kiss her hand, 
 unopposed, as it should seem (for I carefully examined as to that 
 point), inflicted pangs upon me which I cannot even now forget. 
 
 Such was my reasonableness, and again, though alone, I burst 
 out once more with a passage of Rousseau, which I had become 
 fond of :— - 
 
 "Femmes! Femmes! Objets chers et funesles! que la nature 
 orna pour noire supplice, qui punissez quand on vous brave, et 
 qu'on ne peut ni rechercher ni fuir impunement ! " 
 
 It was in vain, under these impressions, that I sought to lose 
 them, by plunging more than ever into business; for a material 
 part of that business arose out of this very disaster at Barbadoes, 
 and the Hastings plantations and Hastings losses so frequently oc- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 201 
 
 curred, that I could not, if I would, attempt oblivion of the name. 
 In the midst of this struggle, too, the arrival of Lady Hungerford 
 in town prevented all further endeavour, and I returned to the 
 subject with almost greater interest than ever. 
 
 My great point was to set the question of the engagement at rest, 
 free from the mystery which Granville had thrown about it 5 and 
 this I was resolved to try through Lady Hungerford, who seemed 
 alone to have the power to decide it. 
 
 That accomplished woman and excellent friend had come back 
 to Berkeley Square for a few days only, to prepare for a longer 
 sojourn with the child of her love, to support and comfort whom 
 she for a time gave up the world she was so formed to adorn. 
 
 Hearing of Lady Hungerford's arrival, I went to do her homage, 
 as well as to satisfy, if I could, the interested curiosity I have con- 
 fessed. I was admitted, and found myself once more alone with her. 
 She gave me warm congratulations on my advancement, and pro- 
 phesied still greater things; but I was deaf to all but what I hoped 
 for— intelligence of Mr. Hastings, Bertha, and her princely cousin. 
 All that I could get from her respecting the latter was — 
 
 " I see the papers have been, as usual, busy with what they know 
 nothing about, and you of course, with the rest of the world, have 
 been busy with the papers. Prince Adolphus came over to visit his 
 relations. That is all the world knows, whatever it says." 
 
 "And the story of his engagement, then, is a fabrication?" 
 observed I. 
 
 I thought Lady Hungerford faltered in her reply. 
 
 " There are at least no signs of a wedding/' said she, " and at 
 any rate, you and I have no business with it." 
 
 This was so peremptory, that I did not dare go on, so was silent. 
 She then spoke of Mr. Hastings' illness. 
 
 u He is, I fear, dying," said she, 44 and my poor Bertha's heart 
 is broken with the prospect. Not that her firmness abandons her ; 
 on the contrary, she thinks herself born only to support her parent 
 in this his hour of trial. He never sees a tear, nor indeed any thing 
 that might not inspire hope. But all who love her cannot but feel 
 for her unprotected situation, if the event happens. The fortune 
 she will have, notwithstanding the late losses, will only expose her 
 more to danger, unless she marries her cousin." 
 
 This was the first voluntary allusion Lady Hungerford had made 
 to such an event, since our memorable conversation, when she so 
 pointedly told me to lay aside all my ambitious, all my romantic 
 thoughts about Bertha; and though her situation naturally, as it 
 were, elicited this mention of her by Lady Hungerford, the latter 
 seemed instantly to recollect herself, and would have changed the 
 subject, had I not said, in answer to her last remark, 
 
202 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 " I had really hoped, for her sake, that the report of the world 
 was true, and that by this time Prince Adolphus would have been 
 the protector you wish for her, under a higher title than that of 
 cousin." 
 
 Lady Hungerford seemed impressed with this. A slight flush 
 passed over her cheek. 
 
 "This from you?" she said. "Did you really hope this? and 
 can we really suppose you sincere in such a hope? " 
 
 "Whatever my feelings, Madam," I replied, "where Miss 
 Hastings' happiness or interest is concerned, you may believe me 
 sincere in any thing and every thing I express." 
 
 " And you could really have been glad and easy, if the reports of 
 this engagement had been well-founded ? " 
 
 "Glad, I believe I could have been— easy, perhaps not; and 
 glad only if Miss Hastings' happiness or welfare had been promoted 
 by it -, for to that, willingly, though possibly not joyfully, I could 
 sacrifice my own." 
 
 Lady Hungerford, with modest grace, touched my hand upon 
 this, and said, 
 
 " Upon my word I could not wish Bertha a better friend, did 
 destiny allow it." 
 
 " Still, destiny!'' I exclaimed. "Yet your ladyship says the re- 
 port of the engagement is not founded." 
 
 " I did not go so far," answered she, "and I will not be en- 
 tangled into difficulties by words growing out of an embarrassing 
 situation. The very word engagement, if critically dissected, 
 might present a thousand difficulties in examining it, and I am im- 
 prudent in the last degree to allow this conversation to proceed ; 
 so, positively, no more. Have you yet spoken in Parliament ? " 
 
 I had tact enough to see that I ought now to desist from farther 
 discussion, and longed to be alone, to perpend what had passed. 
 After a few general topics, therefore, I took my leave, not without 
 pleasure from thinking that Lady Hungerford had been, if not more 
 propitious, at least less severe and decisive than formerly upon this 
 too interesting question ; upon which all farther communication 
 with her was interdicted by her returning to the park the very 
 next day. 
 
 When alone, I examined more coolly what had passed. I could 
 not, in the first place, conceal from myself that though Lady Hun- 
 gerford was almost as mysterious as ever regarding the prince, she 
 was by no means so positive as to the expected marriage. Neither 
 had she renewed that oracular style which bade me so positively to 
 lay aside hope, and lied own and die. Yet, on the other hand, she 
 had any thing but denied the engagement, by admitting that there 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 203 
 
 were difficulties, and an embarrassing situation. So there generally 
 are in all engagements, or none need be made. 
 
 The match therefore was, at least, not off. The prince might have 
 to settle affairs. He might have been called by duty to the army. 
 Mr. Hastings^ illness might have prevented an instant fulfilment, 
 and the ceremony was thus only deferred. AH this supported the 
 supposition. 
 
 Yet the little necessity for secrecy if the fact existed. All parties 
 their own masters ; the match every way so suitable. Why any 
 mystery, if indeed there was any ? Why the wish for a protector, 
 and that protectory hand, if nothing opposed ? Above all, why the 
 want of explicitness — aye or no — in one who must know ; an ex- 
 plicitness which nothing forbade, and kindness recommended ? 
 
 On the other hand, a prohibition to examine the subject. The 
 phrase, "I will not be entangled in difficulties." Why fear to be 
 so? All this defeated the supposition. And thus I was left in the 
 usual sea of doubt. 
 
 At this moment a diversion of interests, which pleasingly occu- 
 pied my thoughts, relieved me for a time, and it must be owned it 
 was a relief I much needed. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE OLD CASTLE OF BARUOLFE CHANGES MASTERS.— MY DREAMS ABOUT IT, — I AM 
 MORE AND MORE EMBARRASSED ABOUT PRINCE ADOLPHUS. 
 
 Thus far my fortune keeps an upward course. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 3 Henry VI. 
 
 The post, for which I was now always keenly anxious, brought 
 me a letter from Mr. Manners 5 not an unexpected event, as I had 
 kept up a constant correspondence with him at his own desire, and 
 informed him of every step of my progress, which much delighted 
 him $ for he said he felt for me as a father would for a son ; " par- 
 ticularly," added he, " as it was I who first advised, and pointed out 
 the path you were to take. This time, however, it is your turn to 
 advise, in a matter in which I want to consult you $ so come to me, 
 if you can, on your first leisure day." 
 
 It may be supposed that I obeyed the summons, and soon found 
 myself at the Grange 
 
 To be there was always to be happy ; for never had I forgotten 
 
204 DE CLIFFORD} 
 
 those delightful, as well as profitable, philosophic conversations with 
 this wise and excellent person, which had done me so much good. 
 It was with joy, therefore, that I shook hands with him once more, 
 and wandered with him again in our old haunts in his garden and 
 the forest. 
 
 He soon let me into the reason for sending for me, by producing 
 a York paper which had been sent him, and which, at first to my 
 surprise, advertised that the caslle and estate of Bardolfe were to 
 be sold, either by auction or private contract. 
 
 For Mr. Hastings' sake, I gave a deep sigh at this; but, after a 
 little consideration, I thought it might be a prudent step to take, 
 there being no family ties on his part to this property, and lying, 
 as it did, so wide from Foljambe. Jn fact, I afterwards found that 
 Granville, on being consulted, had reasoned in the same manner ; 
 and the fatal hurricane having occasioned the immediate necessity 
 for a very considerable sum, he had advised the disposal of this pro- 
 perty in preference to any other, for the very reasons which had 
 suggested themselves to me. 
 
 44 Well," said Mr. Manners, when I had done pondering the 
 subject, u you recollect, I suppose, that the proceeds of this estate, 
 when it went out of your family, came into mine; or rather, only 
 into another branch of yours : for you will also recollect that (though 
 by female descent) we are Cliffords and Bardolfes as well as you." 
 
 4 ' It is impossible to forget," cried I, u what was the main cause 
 of the interest you are so good as to lake in me, and of my conse- 
 quent prosperity." 
 
 44 We will not talk of that," replied he; 4 'but I mention it to 
 account for a wish I have to become the purchaser of what I ought 
 to consider a family estate ; for had not my grandmother's fortune 
 been paid in money, perhaps the place itself would be actually 
 mine." 
 
 44 1 am too happy to think so," answered I. 
 
 44 Well, I have about the wherewithal in the funds to purchase 
 it," observed he, 44 and can even make money by the exchange; 
 and having heard your pleasure in talking of the place, I want you 
 to describe it more accurately, and perhaps more honestly, than the 
 auctioneer here, who talks of it as if it were Kenilworlh." 
 
 At this I laughed, and told him he must lower his expectations 
 by many degrees, and that no doubt it was its being the first great 
 interest of my childhood that made me so fond of it. 
 
 True to his tenets, 44 There cannot be a better reason," said he, 
 44 were it Warwick or Berkeley itself. As the castle, however, will 
 be thrown in for nothing, and the rent-roll is about 600/. a-year, the 
 price asked for it (18,000/.) cannot hurt me ; and if you can tell me 
 that there are no real objections, I have made up my mind to be- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 205 
 
 come the purchaser. What think you, indeed, of my changing my 
 name to the old possessor's? There would then be once again Bar- 
 dolfe of Bardolfe. 
 
 Though this last was badinage, I was greatly pleased with the 
 whole scheme, when, after a little musing, he said, 
 
 " A thought strikes me, which you may approve or not, as you 
 please. You have now, for a bachelor, a large income. Suppose you 
 let half of it accumulate, which it soon would, till you muster up 
 the purchase-money. I would then resell it at the same price, or 
 order my executor to do it. Bardolfe Castle would then really be- 
 long to a rightful descendant of the name ; and when you come to 
 your peerage, which of course you will {being so eminent a states- 
 man), there may be once more a Clifford of Bardolfe, or a Lord 
 Bardolfe, if you please ; only beware of another Bramham Moor." 
 
 This playful humour made the serious plan as to the purchase 
 still more pleasant ; especially when he added, "As soon as the place 
 is mine, I shall certainly, as in duty bound, pay my respects to my 
 relations in the neighbourhood." 
 
 " Were you other than what you are," observed I, *" I should ob- 
 ject to this, on account of the homeliness of your reception 5 for the 
 future Lord Clifford, or Lord Bardolfe, would not like to see his 
 rustic relations undervalued by the still polished man of the world, 
 though he has been so long estranged from it." 
 
 "That they never would be by me," replied he, " for having the 
 sense to confine themselves to their lot, whatever it is : and you 
 must have read me very ill, if you think I should respect them more 
 if they shewed themselves ashamed of it." 
 
 He was commencing a lecture upon this, when he returned to 
 the subject of the purchase, which he said he would set about with- 
 out delay. 
 
 "But meantime," added he, "you shall give me a full and true 
 description of it, which I will take with all due allowances for your 
 fervid imagination in painting any thing or any person you like ; 
 and then perhaps I may get at a little truth." 
 
 I highly approved his caution, particularly as it allowed me a 
 latitude of which I did not fail to avail myself; though upon the 
 whole, without much exaggeration, I gave him such a picture of 
 it, that he said, as soon as he made it his own, he would set off to 
 the north to survey it, and asked if it were possible that I could ac- 
 company him. 
 
 I told him I despaired of it, though nothing would please me 
 more ; yet I could not help wondering at his sudden energy, and 
 readiness to leave the Grange, to which he had professed himself so 
 wedded, that he believed nothing could tempi him from it, even for 
 a day. 
 
206 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 He looked a little conscious in his reply, when he said, 
 
 "Why, I own I am something like Doctor Sangrado, when he 
 was detected by Gil Bias mixing a little (mind, it was but a little) 
 wine with his water. Now, like Sangrado with his water, I do not 
 love the Grange less, but perhaps would wish to see the world a 
 little more before I die. But pray observe, it is not its follies, ils 
 caprice, or its struggles that I want to observe \ but its improvements 
 in its arts and manners, which I am told have been miraculous since 
 I was in it. In fact, I think a short tour may do me good, by re- 
 lieving the sameness of my hermit life, and will make me return to 
 it with heightened enjoyment." 
 
 "You allow, then," said I, I am afraid rather wickedly, "that 
 there is a sameness even in the Grange, which might be the belter 
 for a little relief?" 
 
 "I do," replied he, "and that's the truth on't. Since you left 
 me (and I own, those three or four days you spent with me, and a 
 visit from Lord Castleton and Fothergill, have rather spoiled me ), 
 I have seen nobody but Deborah the cook, and Walker the butler; 
 and besides, the Binfield clock is out of order; so you see I cannot 
 slay here till it is repaired, and meantime, a journey to the north 
 will give me a fillip. Thus I am at least not an unreasonable philo- 
 sopher, the slave of his theory, but confess when the shoe pinches." 
 
 So candid an avowal demanded a cessation from raillery, and I 
 felicitated him upon his openness, which he took in good part ; and 
 he settled to return with me to London, to make his purchase. 
 
 His lawyer I found was Mr. Fountain, and, with that gentleman, 
 there being no factitious difficulty, in order to enhance the costs, 
 he soon after wrote to me from Barnard Castle, that he was lord of 
 the beauliful ruins and fine estate of Bardolfe. 
 
 What was an additional pleasure, he had visited his new relations, 
 as he called them ; found my father a man of worth, my brothers 
 honest fellows, and was half in love with my mother, for putting 
 him, as he was pleased to say, much in mind of his own. 
 
 "You may suppose," said he, "we talked much of t' young 
 doctor." In fine, he was much pleased both with the estate and the 
 castle; so much with the latter, that he was fitting up three or four 
 rooms for a Christian to live in when he came to visit it, preferring 
 it greatly, he said, to that dreary Chartreuse, Bolton le Moors. 
 
 Meantime, though in London, and plunged in business, it may 
 be supposed I kept a watchful eye upon the spot where almost all 
 my interests were centered, and I daily looked with tremor for the 
 arrival of the post from Foljambe. The illness of Mr. Hastings — 
 still protracted — kept my nerves on the stretch ; for if he died, what 
 would become of Bertha? With so much greater need of comfort 
 and support, I more than ever concluded that she would naturally 
 
OU, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 207 
 
 seek the prince as her lawful protector, for of the engagement there 
 could be no doubt. 
 
 Under these impressions, therefore, I was struck with wonder by 
 a letter from Granville, which, after informing me in the body of it 
 that Mr. Hastings was better, announced in a postscript, that in 
 consequence of it, the prince was about to return to Germany. 
 
 This renewed all my speculations, particularly as Granville added, 
 that both he and Bertha seemed particularly happy and pleased with 
 one another. He then gave me news about himself, which, but for 
 the jealousy which this intimation created, would have filled me 
 with unalloyed delight. 
 
 Attendance on a sick bed is not, in general, the most auspicious 
 moment for pressing, successfully, a suit of love 5 yet, in this in- 
 stance, it proved so to the happy Granville. The interest kindled in 
 each other for their common and lovely favourite, and their own 
 dedication of themselves to support her under her desolation, had 
 so mutually endeared Lady Hungerford and himself, that what had 
 not yet happened now finally took place, and Lady Hungerford, the 
 richly-endowed — the rose and expectancy of the court and of fashion 
 —had become the betrothed of the accomplished, though compa- 
 ratively poor, younger brother — Granville. 
 
 A strange consequence of this was, that my joy at his success, 
 great as it was (for how much reason had I to love him), was 
 heightened by I know not what unaccountable sensation of hope 
 which it kindled in my own heart. The disproportion between 
 Granville and his superior mistress was scarcely less than between 
 me and mine 5 if I could call any one mine merely because I loved 
 her, though without return. Lady Hungerford had five thousand 
 a-year ; with the world at her feet. Granville, perhaps, had not more 
 than five hundred, though with high official expectations. Yet Lady 
 Hungerford sacrificed golden prospects to unite herself to a fine- 
 minded man, whose heart she had long known was devoted to her, 
 and whose cultivated intellect and disposition were of kindred with 
 her own. 
 
 A very proper reason this for supposing that Miss Hastings would 
 distinguish me as Lady Hungerford had Granville! Yet I could not 
 divest myself of the flattering thought that, as far as mind and 
 disposition went, I, too, might claim kindred with Mr. Hastings' 
 daughter; and, as to worldly circumstances, I too had expectations, 
 and more in possession than Granville himself. 
 
 Alas I in my sanguine nature— my blind enthusiasm — I totally 
 passed over, not only the little circumstance that I never had had 
 reason to think myself more than esteemed by Bertha 5 but, strange 
 to say, I left out of the conviction that she was engaged to another, 
 Of such materials are lovers composed ! 
 
208 DE CLIFFORD $ 
 
 A second perusal of Granville's letter, however, soon brought 
 back all my doubts and fears ; for though the return of the prince 
 to Germany surprised me, he and Bertha were particularly happy 
 together. What could be inferred but that he went to settle affairs 
 previous to his nuptials, which he would return, as soon as possible, 
 to consummate? 
 
 With this conviction pressing upon me, my excitement was at its 
 height by the prince's arrival in town, and presentation at court, to 
 take leave on returning to the continent. The papers, too, of that 
 morning, as usual, busy with gossip about the great, had announced 
 my own very conclusion, that he was soon to revisit England, after 
 settling some private business, in order to lead his fair cousin to 
 the Hymeneal altar, etc., etc. 
 
 It may be supposed, whether true or false, how this fixed me, 
 and how I watched the prince at the levee, whither I went almost 
 expressly for that purpose. 
 
 To do him justice, he might have kindled the jealousy of any — 
 even a favoured lover — so much had he the air noble, which he 
 had not been able to conceal in his loose wrapper and travelling 
 cap, when he caused me so much perturbation on the north road. 
 He was now set off by his rich uniform and military order, and I 
 looked and felt little by his side (for I got purposely near him) 
 when I contemplated my own unmeaning coat of olive cloth, poorly 
 relieved by its steel buttons and satin lining, with a thin spit by my 
 side, not to be named with his burnished gold sabre and imposing 
 sabrelash. His graceful manner, too, when spoken to by royalty, 
 threw me farther and farther into the background, and a bitter pang 
 shrunk my heart when I forced myself to confess that he seemed 
 fairly worthy of Bertha. 
 
 My attention, however, was still more fixed when, after being 
 spoken to, he joined Lord Castleton, by whom I was standing, and 
 in reply to his question whether he was not soon to return from 
 Germany, he replied in the negative. 
 
 " We have been told," said Lord Castleton, smilingly, for he 
 knew him, and had known His father, and spoke with an air of frank 
 badinage, u that not only we might expect that honour, but that 
 the cause for it is of a particularly interesting nature." 
 
 "Ah!" said he, in tolerable English, relieved by French, "I 
 have been told so too, by your omniscient newspapers, but I assure 
 you I am not so happy." 
 
 At the same time his smile, when he said this, contradicted it 5 
 for it betokened any thing but a desponding, still less a rejected 
 lover. My interest and embarrassment rose to its highest point. 
 
 The words not so happy" accompanied me the whole day after- 
 wards. How often did I turn them so as to mean every thing, or 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 209 
 
 nothing. Could they be taken literally ? Oh ! no. He seemed him- 
 self loo happy. The intimacy between the cousins could not come to 
 such a termination. The reports of the world — the admissions of 
 Granville— the mysteries of Lady Hungerford, and her arguments 
 from destiny- — could not so end. It was plainly a little piece of male 
 coquetry in the prince, or a desire to rid himself of annoying sur- 
 mises. 
 
 The repetition, however, of the assertion, in a quarter where 
 trifling is not allowed, appeared to put the matter out of doubt the 
 other way. The queen, it seems, had a private party that evening, 
 and, fond of her countrymen, the prince was not only there, but 
 she questioned him on the subject, giving the report in the papers 
 as her excuse. There was the same denial as there had been at the 
 levee, only the denial was to majesty, whom it would have been 
 unseemly to deceive, and more than once repeated, because the 
 question was reiterated. There could, therefore, be no doubt about 
 it, in the opinion of Lord Castleton, who was at the party, and told 
 me the occurrence. 
 
 I passed a sleepless night in consequence; my whole mind in 
 nubibus ; the conduct of the cousins was more and more a riddle. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 I MEET LORD ALBANY IN THE WORLD. — ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 Know my name is lost; 
 By treason's tooth bare gnawn, and canker bit : 
 Yet am I noble as the adversary 
 I come to cope withal. 
 
 Thou art a traitor; 
 A most toad-spotted traitor ! Say'st thou no ? 
 This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent, 
 To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak, 
 Thou liest. 
 
 Shakspeare.— King Lear. 
 
 The day after the queen's party, Prince Adolphus embarked for 
 Germany. So said the tattling papers, this time, without a comment. 
 
 I, at least, breathed more freely for that event. Still, however, 
 I was in a tumult of unsatisfied doubt, which I felt nothing could 
 allay, but a certain assurance from the other quarter, either that 
 the engagement did not exist, or that the prince, for private reasons, 
 had misled even the queen in regard to it. 
 
 Yet, how was I to obtain the information I panted for? Lady 
 ii. 14 
 
210 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 Hungerford had positively refused it 5 Granville seemed (o have told 
 me all he knew; and the still most precarious state of Mr. Hastings, 
 which detained those friends at Foljambe, precluded all opportunity 
 of succeeding in personal inquiries. 
 
 In the midst of this embarrassment an event arose, the most im- 
 portant of my life, even if it had not given, as it did, a colour to 
 it, of the very utmost consequence to my reputation and after pro- 
 ceedings. As it gave rise, therefore, to much discussion, both pub- 
 lic and private, at the lime, and was differently represented ac- 
 cording to the feelings upon it by very different parties, I will set 
 it down in all simplicity and plainness as the facts arose, without 
 an attempt at varnish or comment, leaving the reader to judge for 
 himself. 
 
 Lord Albany, of whom no mention has been made since the un- 
 happy issue of his quarrel with poor Foljambe Hastings, left Eng- 
 land as soon as his recovery from his own wound would permit 
 him. Whether he felt himself so much to blame in having, in so 
 trifling a case, exposed his own life, and caused the loss of that of 
 his friend, that he feared the censure of society, and so absented 
 himself from it till the matter should be blown over (all which, from 
 his character, is not probable), or whether a career of impetuous 
 pleasure in which he embarked abroad, at first, as he said, to make 
 him forget this lamentable catastrophe, but which at last laid such 
 hold of him, that he cared not to return to his sober country 5 cer- 
 tain it is, that for near four years he had remained a sort of exile 
 from his native land. The interval he had passed in visiting the 
 remotest, as well as the neighbouring parts of Europe, and after 
 traversing Greece, the Archipelago, and Turkey, had extended his 
 travels over Mount Caucasus, Circassia, and Georgia. These exa- 
 mined, he seated himself alternately at Vienna and Paris, with what 
 profit to his manners or character the sequel will shew. 
 
 Qn his return to London , he found I he gossip of the town em- 
 ployed upon the handsome Adolphus, who had made a kind of 
 sensation at the palace ; and as the papers had put the beau monde 
 upon the scent, everybody, for a day or two, was inquiring into 
 the story of the two cousins. All were convinced that they had been, 
 some that they were still, betrothed 5 some that the contract was 
 broken off all anxious to know or explain why. 
 
 I had listened rather uneasily for two days, at dinners where I 
 was present, to these discussions, but held my peace ; — when, on 
 the third, I had the misfortune to meet Lord Albany. 
 
 It was at Lord Hartlebury's, a valued friend of Lord Caslleton's, 
 a veteran general officer of known gallantry, and of high character 
 for honour and good sense, that I met the marquess. Not knowing 
 of his return home, I was surprised to see him enter the drawing- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 211 
 
 room before dinner, with a visage and manner of even increased 
 ferocity and haughtiness. I knew him directly •,— indeed there was 
 no mistaking his look of recklessness and disdain. Whether he re- 
 cognised me, though he perused me with his glass, I don't know. 
 He certainly acted as if he did not; and having seen me not above 
 three or four limes, and that when I was a comparative stripling, five 
 years before, I acquit him (not having been introduced) of all 
 knowledge of my person. 
 
 Nothing particular passed during the actual dinner, and if ( not 
 having been presented to him) he shewed me no civility, it was no 
 more than he did by his known friends, who were nearer to him, 
 and over whom he seemed to domineer with a most imperious 
 and offensive air. It was easy to see he was not popular, and Lord 
 Hartlebury himself, though he shewed deference to his quality, was 
 evidently annoyed by his manner. 
 
 No one had yet mentioned the common topic of the day, when 
 he himself led to it, by asking if anybody had seen the illustrious 
 stranger, whom the queen and the whole bedchamber had not yet 
 done talking of. 
 
 " I have," said Lord Hartlebury, "and I am not surprised at 
 the impression he made, for he is as soft and graceful in manner, 
 particularly to women, as he is decidedly handsome." 
 
 "Indeed!" said Lord Albany. "Then how came he to fail 
 in carrying his point with that pert damsel, his cousin, my old 
 flame and acquaintance? To be sure, she is a devilish coquette, 
 and has jilted not a few \ poor Harry Melford and me, you know, 
 among them. ,, 
 
 Here he looked round with a sardonic laugh, as if to shew 
 either that the fact was not true, or that he was perfectly indiffe- 
 rent to it. 
 
 "If you mean Miss Hastings," said Lord Hartlebury, "I did 
 not know you had been one of her admirers, much less that she 
 had jilted you." 
 
 "No! " cried Lord Albany (seeming to think he had disclosed 
 more than was necessary) ; " I thought everybody knew that. But I 
 could not long occupy myself with such a country chit, though an 
 enormous coquette, who would flirt with anybody that would flirt 
 with her. Melford, me, her cousin Mansell, and " 
 
 " That too is new to me," said Lord Hartlebury, interrupting 
 him. 
 
 " But yet," continued Lord Albany " I am surprised, that to be 
 married to a prince, though a poor one, had not charms enough 
 for a person whose father is always boasting, on the mere strength 
 of his name, of a high descent, which I believe he cannot make 
 out. At any rate, the prospect of such an alliance ought to have 
 
212 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 cured her of flirting; particularly as they say Hie family is ruined, 
 and that supposed fine fortune of hers most cruelly attenuated. 
 She will, at least, not be able to jilt many more." 
 
 Had this insolent nobleman stabbed me to the heart with a 
 dagger, he could not have given me more pain than he did by this 
 speech, in which he was by no means countenanced by any one of 
 the party. On the contrary, all looked aloof, some resentful, and 
 one generous one, the young Sir William Wentworth, to whom I 
 had been introduced by Granville, and the neighbours in York- 
 shire, though little known to Mr. Hastings, had risen to express 
 what he thought of this slander, when I prevented him, for my 
 heart was full, and my blood boiled. 
 
 u Lord Albany," said I, " one would have thought, that having 
 taken the life of the brother, in revenge for your disappointment 
 with the sister, you might have spared that sister, and been satisfied 
 without slandering a lady as irreproachable as heaven. You have, 
 too, in what you have said, disparaged and spoken disrespectfully 
 of a gentleman of known worth, and who, though not equal to 
 you in title, is of a birth far superior to your own. The good taste 
 of such sneers against those whose alliance you once courted, 
 though without success, I will not inquire into, any more than 
 the bravery of it, in their absence, and that of all their relations \ 
 but when you come to a positive imputation of the crime of levity 
 and jilting to this young lady, as proved in your own instance, as 
 a friend, though a humble one, of the family, and knowing the 
 circumstances, I am bound to tell you, you have been guilty of a 
 wilful violation of the truth." 
 
 The whole company were startled at this reproof; yet more, 
 seemingly, from apprehension of the consequences, than because 
 they disapproved it. The young Sir William, too, of an ardent 
 spirit, and who had just got his commission in the guards, ab- 
 solutely clapped his hands, and exclaimed, "Quite right, quite 
 right. ,, 
 
 All the rest preserved a profound silence, though it was easy to 
 perceive they were much moved ; when Lord Albany, after eyeing 
 Sir William, said with more coolness than I expected, 
 
 u I perceive I have two challengers upon my hands, to whom 
 I am expected to give battle. One of them I know — Sir William 
 Wentworth, a gentleman at least 5 but you, Sir, of whose very name 
 I am ignorant, who the devil are you ?" 
 
 The whole company seemed again moved by this insolence, and 
 Lord Hartlebury rose to interfere, but before he could speak, I 
 replied, 
 
 "My name is lost 5 yet it was once well known as honourable and 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 213 
 
 noble in the history of my country, long before your lordship's had 
 emerged from obscurity." 
 
 Lord Albany looked mad with rage, and Ihe table seemed struck 
 with still more interest at this answer, which was increased when 
 I went on : 
 
 44 My name is De Clifford, once owned by the lords of Clifford 
 Castle, whose resentments, when they had any, never stooped to 
 calumniate a defenceless lady in her absence." 
 
 " Right again, by G — !" cried Sir William, who could not re- 
 press his feelings. 
 
 " I believe I now recollect you," answered Lord Albany, almost 
 suffocated with pride. "■ I think you were a servitor, or some such 
 thing, when I was at Oxford, and a follower of the Hastings family. 
 It seems that at least you have not forgot your duty to them, and 
 earn your wages." 
 
 " My lord," now interposed Lord Hartlebury, " this must not 
 go on. Were Mr. De Clifford not the gentleman I know him to 
 be, he is my guest, and I cannot permit such taunts to proceed. 
 But what Mr. De Clifford has said of himself I know to be true; 
 and as a gentleman, even if he were not in high confidential office 
 under the king, in all but rank he is fully your lordship's equal." 
 
 " My lord," returned the marquess, rising from his chair, " you 
 may permit, or not permit, what you please. 1 take this speech 
 of yours as an order to be gone, and I obey. For this young 
 gentleman (pointing at Sir William), the name he bears will cer- 
 tainly make me gratify the eagerness he seems to have, to be 
 brought into notice. For the other, I shall beg to suspend what, 
 perhaps, he expects from me, till I have made inquiries whether 
 he is worthy of it." 
 
 So saying, he stalked to the door, red with passion $ but not 
 before Lord Hartlebury, who had rung, said to the servant who 
 answered the bell, loud enough to be heard, 
 
 "Shew Lord Albany out of the house." 
 
 There was a considerable pause, every one looking at the other, 
 and stealthily at me, in silence ; when Lord Hartlebury gallantly 
 said to me, 
 
 44 Mr. De Clifford, I am most distressed that this should have 
 happened anywhere, but in particular at my table 5 and I think it 
 but due to you to bear witness, which I shall do in any way you 
 may be pleased to command, to the honour you have shewn in de- 
 fending an innocent lady from the foulest attack I ever witnessed, 
 to say nothing of the gross affront to yourself; and whatever the 
 consequences, I shall feel honour and pleasure if my testimony or 
 support, in any manner you may please to require them, can be of 
 the least service to you." 
 
214 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 This address from the generous veteran seemed to be echoed by 
 a murmur of approbation from the rest of the company, whose 
 social enjoyments being interrupted by what had happened, the 
 party broke up. Sir William Wenlworth, however, in going out, 
 taking me to a corner of the hall, said he had something to say to 
 me, and asked me to set him down, when he would talk to me in 
 the carriage, to which I of course agreed. 
 
 His business, I found, proceeded from the same generosity he 
 had shewn at the table, when Lord Albany had so disgraced himself. 
 
 "The proud ruffian," said he, "for so I must call him, will 
 certainly challenge you ; indeed he never can shew his face if he 
 does not. What he may do by me I don't know 5 but when his 
 message comes, my request is that you will allow me and no one 
 else to be your second.' 1 
 
 I thanked the gallant fellow, said it should be so, and we parted 
 for the night. 
 
 Well, I was now far advanced in the progress of life; I had 
 achieved what might be comparatively called greatness and fortune ; 
 I had certainly acquired no inconsiderable knowledge of men, and 
 some of women; and I had now, for the sake of a woman, an ex- 
 periment on my hands of the effects of a challenge, which might, 
 and probably would, terminate my own life, unless I took that of 
 another. 
 
 As I had never fired a pistol but once, and my adversary had 
 fatally proved his skill, 1 felt that the former would be the result. 
 But the cause kept me up. I felt that Wentworlh's name for Albany, 
 6 * Ruffian," was a true one, and that his rank could not alter it. 
 I felt that he was more ; that he had acted as a scoundrel towards 
 her I had defended. His insolence to myself I might have passed, 
 if the customs of the world would have permitted it; at least my 
 feelings would have been less excited, perhaps I may say, less firm, 
 if the wrong had been confined to myself. But when Bertha, the 
 angel of my heart, though lost to me— when her honour was con- 
 cerned! How reckless did it make me? How proud should I be 
 even to die in her defence ! 
 
 These thoughts occupied half my night; and, spite of many com- 
 punctious visitings, I became impatient in the morning for the mar- 
 quess's message. 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 I AM CHALLENGED BY LORD ALBANY. — THE RESULT. 
 
 The wound that bred this meeting 
 Cannot be cured by words. 
 
 Shakspeare. — 3 Henry VI. 
 
 He cannot by the duello avoid it. 
 
 Twelfth Night, 
 
 The morning came, and with it, though at a lale hour, the ap- 
 pearance of the Honourable Colonel Montfort, a gentlemanly man, of 
 polite address 5 one of those who, as Sir Lucius says, are in their 
 quarrels as sharp and as polished as their sword. After preliminary 
 civilities, and announcing lhat he came from Lord Albany, he opened 
 the matter at once, and not unhandsomely said, 
 
 "I am rejoiced, in the first place, to assure you that the marquess 
 confesses himself wrong for having presumed to question your suf- 
 ficiency, in point of birth and station, to meet him in the field. 1 ' 
 
 "May I ask," said I, "how, or to whom, I am obliged for hav- 
 ing this important point cleared up?" 
 
 "To Lord Hartlebury, in the first place," replied the colonel; 
 " to whom, not choosing to consult him himself, the marquess re- 
 ferred me, and he to Lord Castlelon, who, having given the most 
 satisfactory explanations, I convinced Lord Albany lhat he was 
 bound in honour, not only to waive his objections, but to make you 
 an apology for having entertained them. This he has not exactly 
 authorized, but on my own responsibility I take it upon myself 
 to do so." 
 
 I thanked the colonel for his attention to me in this respect, 
 which I thought comparatively of little consequence. 
 
 "True," said Colonel Montfort, " the real point is the thing; 
 for, from the account given me by Lord Albany, I fear there can 
 be no alternative between you. I fear it, because, soldier as I am, 
 I should be glad not to despair, as I do, of the ample apology I am 
 directed to require." 
 
 " Are you aware of the cause for the provocation?" asked L 
 
 "I believe I am," replied he; "but I come not here to defend 
 Lord Albany, but to seek reparation for the deepest injury that a 
 man's honour can receive, whether provoked or not." 
 
 "AH my answer, then," said I, "while I thank you for your 
 
216 DE CLIFFORD , 
 
 politeness, is lo say that, under such provocation, apology is out of 
 the question." 
 
 44 1 thought so, 1 ' observed he. " May I ask whom you mean to 
 represent you as your friend?" 
 < ' Sir William Wentworth." 
 "Of the first guards?" 
 "Yes." 
 
 " A young, and inexperienced, but a man of spirit and honour. 
 Yet I could have wished it had been any other." 
 "Why?" 
 
 u He is implicated himself. For his lordship says, his life is not 
 worth a feather, unless he has satisfaction from you both. How- 
 ever, I have no right to advise. I will call upon Sir William. The 
 day is far advanced; but I trust you may hear from me before 
 evening." 
 
 Thus finished the most portentous interview which in my life I 
 had yet encountered. But all reflection upon it was precluded by 
 the meeting between Colonel Montfort and Sir William, almost on 
 the steps of the house, as the former departed. They immediately 
 adjourned to the park ; and in half an hour Sir William returned 
 with an offer, for my determination, of the most sequestered part of 
 the park, that very evening, or Wimbledon the next morning. 
 
 An enemy all my life to suspense and delay, I instantly chose the 
 first, and with this Sir William proceeded to Colonel Montfort's 
 lodgings, having promised also to bring me his pistols; I, in the 
 absence of all fear of such a mischance, never having yet provided 
 myself with those instruments of gentlemanly satisfaction. 
 
 Left to myself, I naturally engaged in a self-examination, and 
 anxiously weighed my position. Totally unskilled in the use of any 
 weapons, whether of defence or offence, and fully aware of the 
 marquess's superiority, already so fatally proved, I gave myself up 
 to death, or some grievous bodily hurt. This was, however, the 
 least part of my anxiety, and when I reflected that Bertha would 
 know that it was for her sake, and in defence of her honour, there 
 was even something sweet in it. 
 
 But though I had not reflected much on the subject, I was by no 
 means convinced of the lawfulness of duelling, and in vain pleaded 
 the customs of the world, and the cruel blow it would be to my 
 reputation if I shrank from the affair. Then, what was my position 
 in it? Though Lord Albany had been the aggressor, it was not to- 
 wards me. I might have been silent like the rest of the company. 
 It was I, therefore, who had given the affront, and put him in the 
 situation, which he could not avoid, of demanding satisfaction. 
 This was not a pleasant reflection, and I had almost made up my 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 217 
 
 mind to receive his shot, in which case, should I escape, the affair 
 would not go on, and all might be well. But could I escape? Or, 
 if I did, was I sure there would be an end? Might he not insist on 
 going on? and was he not savage enough to do so? and would not 
 then the first danger be thrown away? In short, would he not kill 
 me, if I did not kill him? and was it not therefore self-defence? 
 
 This reasoning, such as it was, convinced me 5 and when I again 
 thought of the bloody, bullying character of the man, together with 
 his infamous charges against Miss Hastings, my scruples vanished 
 one after the other, and by the time Sir William came to fetch me, 
 just after sunset, I had pretty well made up my mind to kill or be 
 killed in a cause which I thought so just and honourable. Who 
 ever has scruples when he goes into the field in a national war? 
 Why does he take the field? Because there is no law but of arms to 
 appeal to. Here, though there was the law of the land, it reached 
 not the case of a defenceless and virtuous woman scandalously ca- 
 lumniated, or the consequences of having asserted ker cause. 
 
 With these reflections, which my spirited young companion 
 highly approved, we arrived first on the ground, the west extremity 
 of the park, beyond the ranger's lodge. The sentinels at the powder 
 magazine saw us, and suspected our business 5 but it was not their 
 duty, nor did it accord with their profession, to interrupt us. 
 
 We did not wait long; for in a minute or two Albany and his 
 friend, together with the surgeon-general of the guards, whom 
 Colonel Montfort and Sir William had requested to atlend, arrived 
 on the ground. I saluted them, to which his lordship, who seemed 
 more than usually dogged and sullen, did not deign to reply, but 
 goaded Colonel Montfort to make haste. We were, however, re- 
 tarded by his own desire for vengeance-, for when it was agreed 
 upon by the seconds that we should fire at twelve paces, he insisted 
 upon nine, which occasioned a debate ; till I myself, who gave up 
 my life for lost, and thought the only chance I had for my want of 
 skill was to consent to the proposal, desired the seconds (for Colonel 
 Montfort joined mine in refusing the motion) to waive all discus- 
 sion, but let us take our ground. For I was, moreover, more and 
 more exasperated at this thirst for blood in one I thought a wild 
 beast, and felt a recklessness in consequence myself, which, at least, 
 was not natural lo me. We therefore, against the will of our friends, 
 stood at the shorter distance. 
 
 We fired by word of command, and it pleased Heaven that 1 
 should escape 5 for the noble savage, as he afterwards owned, re- 
 solving to kill, aimed at my head, and, firing loo high, his ball 
 went through my hat, and knocked it off; while mine, though with- 
 out any object but the body at large, took effect upon his knee, the 
 pan of which it broke, and lodged in the socket. The exquisite pain 
 
218 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 of this made him instantly fall, and I ran up to assist him with the 
 gentlemen present. 
 
 What was my own and their horror, when, though writhing in 
 torture, he told me to go to my ground, and desired another pistol ! 
 
 Colonel Montfort said it was impossible, and signed to some of 
 the men of the guard-house ( whom it seems he had ordered to be 
 in readiness) to come up and give assistance. Two of them went off 
 for a hand-barrow \ and the surgeon having done all he could to 
 stanch the blood, the rash and ill governed man was conveyed to 
 the ranger's house, as the nearest asylum, where the surgeon, on a 
 nearer inspection, declared the wound, from the havoc made among 
 the sinews, of the most serious aspect. 
 
 In effect, to close this disagreeable part of the recital at once, 
 and return to it no more, the king's surgeon being called in, both 
 declared that life, if indeed it could be preserved at ail, depended 
 upon amputation above the knee, which was accordingly effected 
 two days after. 
 
 Thus, to rny own astonishment, I found myself, by the will of 
 Providence, delivered from a danger I thought inevitable \ and ap- 
 parently by accident, but undoubtedly through the same will, made 
 the instrument of vengeance against this proud, licentious man. 
 Oh! how did his behaviour make me recollect Fothergill's in- 
 dignant, yet pathetic, invective against the same man, joined with 
 another almost in the same circumstances, some years before ! 
 
 On leaving the ranger's house, Montfort himself joined Sir 
 William and me in council what was to be done 5 and as we had all 
 been seen by the magazine guard, to whom the two officers were 
 known, it was settled that we should retire to Calais, until the 
 opinions of the surgeons were decidedly known, and I returned to 
 Green Street to prepare for the journey. 
 
 Here to my surprise and pleasure, I found Lord Castlelon affec- 
 tionately waiting for me, having called once before. When I told 
 him the event, he congratulated me on my safety, though he de- 
 plored the necessity for my instant retirement. 
 
 " As to the origin of the affront," said he, u I have heard it all 
 from Lord Hartlebury, who thought you so much in the right, and 
 his guest in the wrong, that he could have willingly, he said, old 
 as he was, have taken your place had it been necessary. But what 
 you inform me of is serious, and the old soldier has himself made 
 notes of the cause of quarrel, in which he has been joined by some 
 of his guests, who equally approve of the spirit and honour of your 
 conduct. To tell you the truth," added he, " it only confirms what 
 I have long suspected, that the interest you have always shewn 
 about this young lady and her family has proceeded from something 
 more than the mere feeling of a preux chevalier. But of this ? 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 219 
 
 nothing now ; your first object must be freedom from arrest, and to 
 get out of the country as soon as you can. Meantime, as it will be 
 all over the town to-morrow, and will soon spread to Foljambe, I 
 wish you to see these notes of Lord Hartlebury, and tell me if they 
 are accurate ; which, if they are, I will send them to your friends, 
 Lady Hungerford and Granville, that you may not be misrepre- 
 sented where, perhaps, you would most wish to be properly un- 
 derstood." 
 
 I could have worshipped Lord Castleton for this consideration, 
 and greedily perused Lord Harllebury's notes, which I found as 
 exact almost as if taken by a short-hand writer; and I felt relieved 
 that, upon such an authority, my fame would stand clear, and that 
 neither Mr. Hastings nor Bertha could think I had been officious 
 in defending them both from so gross an attack upon them in their 
 absence. 
 
 This I told Lord Castleton was my chief concern, and he promised 
 to look minutely to it. How did I thank him? He then, as it was 
 too late to send to the banker's, gave me his pockelbook, which 
 contained a hundred-pound note, which, with my own, made up a 
 sufficient sum 5 and soon after Sir William coming to me in a chaise, 
 by agreement, I took leave of my kind and noble friend-' — noble in 
 nature, more even than in rank — in a few hours was at Dover, and 
 in a few more at Calais. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 I TAKE REFUGE AT CALAIS, WHERE I RECEIVE INTERESTING- LETTERS FROM GRANVILLE 
 AND LADY HUNGERFORD, WHICH PUT ME AT REST AS TO THE EFFECT OF MY REN- 
 CONTRE WITH LORD ALBANY ON THE FAMILY AT FOLJAMBE, BUT CLEAR UP NOTHING 
 ON THE GREAT POINT.— -AN UNEXPECTED VISIT FROM FOTHERGILL MAKES ME MORE 
 UNCERTAIN THAN EVER; AND AN UNEXPECTED ACCESSION OF FORTUNE FILLS ME 
 WITH EXCITEMENT. 
 
 Since you will buckle fortune on my back, 
 I must have patience to bear the load. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Richard HI. 
 
 On our journey Sir William informed me that he had occupied 
 his morning before he met Colonel Montfort pretty much as Lord 
 Hartlebury had done, in drawing up an account of the gratuitous 
 and unfounded attack, in all its offensive terms, which Lord Albany 
 had made upon Miss Hastings ; thai he had had just time to add 
 the result of the meeting, on his return from the park, and had 
 
220 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 left it in a letter, to be sent the next day to Granville, " for yours, 
 and I may add," said he, " my own justification." 
 
 I was struck with this forethought in a man so young, and not 
 sorry that my justification, if I wanted it, should thus be a double 
 one from eye and ear witnesses. 
 
 It may be supposed we passed an anxious time at Calais, watching 
 lor every packet which came in, and which in truth brought many 
 letters from our friends. 
 
 The town was, as usual, divided at first, and Lord Albany as the 
 sufferer, and whose death was expected, had on that account a 
 larger body of friends than his little popularity could have other- 
 wise commanded. By these it was said that my interference had 
 been gratuitous, officious, and uncalled for, and I had therefore 
 given the first offence. But the stout and cool Lord Hartlebury soon 
 cleared up all tendency to defend Lord Albany or to blame me, 
 especially when he had laid before that just man, the king him- 
 self (who desired it), the same account he had given to Lord 
 Caslleton. 
 
 This of course refuted the assertion which had at first been made, 
 not merely by Lord Albany's friends, but by the votaries and pur- 
 veyors of gossip, that, without provocation, I had in the grossest 
 manner given the marquess the lie. 
 
 As this had been dressed up in form by the scandalous papers, to 
 whose virtuous editors it gave many a dinner, I thought myself of 
 writing a rjlain and succinct account of the affair to Granville; for 
 I was tremblingly alive as to what might be thought of it by her 
 who would not, I knew, thank me for having made her the subject 
 of conversation. Recollecting, however, that it had already been 
 done by Lord Harllebury's and Wentworlh's notes, I contented 
 myself with billets, which I wrote from Dover, both to Granville 
 and Lady Hungerford, recommending my cause to the protection 
 of those friends, and imploring that they would procure my acquittal 
 from Mr. Hastings and his daughter of having officiously become 
 their defender. 
 
 To these I received in a few days, at Calais, answers that made 
 my heart dance with joy, and almost put to flight the anxiety I was 
 feeling for the fate of the mutilated Lord Albany. 
 
 u Rest satisfied," said the good Granville, " for you could not, I 
 believe, be in better hands than your own, both with father and 
 daughter, even without the testimonials that have been received as 
 to your conduct in what gave rise to this unhappy affair. Mr. Has- 
 tings (who, I should tell you, is so much belter, that we had no 
 scruple to lay the account before him) was particularly pleased with 
 your tellkig the marquess that fi our birth,' to use his words, 8 was 
 far superior to his own.' ' An upstart,' said he, 6 whose family were 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 221 
 
 never known till the Revolution ! I want no other proof,' added 
 my uncle, 6 of the advantages of ancient birth than this gentlemanly 
 conduct of Mr. De Clifford \ nor can I forget that in the old limes 
 his Bardolfe ancestors and mine fought on the same side,' ,s 
 
 "As for Bertha," continued Granville, " I leave it to another pen 
 to console your fears about her. Suffice it that she thinks of your 
 zeal for her fair fame as I am sure she ought, and I would add, as 
 you could wish- — -only I know not how far that wish may extend, 
 particularly now the prince has left us. All of us unite in opinion 
 on the gallantry of your conduct, and in gratitude for your safely, 
 which we hope may not be farther endangered, though the accounts 
 of the marquess are by no means decisive as to his safety." 
 
 If this letter pleased me, what did I not feel on reading Lady 
 Hungerford's? 
 
 64 Console yourself," said she, "for your are chevalier sans 
 reproche, as well as preux. Far from supposing that the name 
 you have so well defended has been compromised by you, all here 
 — not only the rest of us, but she most concerned — fix the blame 
 where alone it is deserved, and think only of the generous friend 
 and gallant avenger you have shewn yourself to be. I believe 
 myself that I am imprudent in telling you how much, while 
 grateful for it, the danger you have been in, affected us $ and when 
 we add the cause, can I conceal the effects of it on her who was 
 most interested in the event? At first she seemed confounded with 
 the distress of thinking herself the object of public observation, 
 perhaps of public animadversion 5 she was melancholy, silent, and 
 lost in thought; and when she recovered her speech, observed, she 
 did not think there was a man in the world who would have done 
 this except her cousin the prince, or Mr. De Clifford. Her tears 
 then began to flow fast — yes, the tears of this daughter of my heart, 
 who was sought to be ' done to death by slanderous tongues,' pro- 
 claimed how she thanked you. Mistake me not, however. Though 
 my respect and regard for you, heightened to the utmost by this 
 proof of your generous devoledness, lead me to give you this 
 satisfaction, to allay the fears you have expressed, you must not 
 construe it into more than it is, — the most perfect gratitude 5 nor 
 think the abslraction of thought she has been in ever since the 
 event any thing but the natural uneasiness of a retired and delicate 
 mind, at finding she has been made the talk of the world. These 
 things I tell you, my young friend and pupil, because that 
 sanguine disposition of yours might catch at this improperly; 
 especially since the departure of the prince may again call forth 
 spirits which had belter be laid. The feelings of this beloved child 
 have lately been too much excited, and in this last affair outraged, 
 not to make me side with her in thinking that the most entire 
 
222 DE CLIFFORD} 
 
 retreat from notice is the best restorative to her peace. Her brother s 
 untimely and fearful death 5 her father's danger (though that has 
 subsided) 5 the blow to his fortune (though that affects not her, 
 except as increasing the curiosity of which she dreads to be the 
 subject)^ the whole matter of Prince Adolphus's visit and departure 
 making her still a public theme} and lastly, this cruel affair! — 
 Confess there is enough to affect and occupy this most delicate, 
 though at the same time this firmest of minds. 
 
 4k Let me not, however, end in gloom. The happy prospect of 
 her father's recovery has already produced a change for the better} 
 and if this dreadful man recovers too, to repent of his sins, and 
 relieve you from danger, and her from continuing the subject of an 
 impertinent world, her sweet nature may resume its play, and she 
 be again happy, as in that time which she says was the happiest of 
 her life, when she taught you and her brother French, and all of 
 you dug in your gardens together. 
 
 "And now adieu. We daily watch the post for accounts of 
 Lord Albany, which are furnished by my porter, whom I have 
 ordered to make daily inquiries, heaven knows, more for your sake 
 than his." 
 
 Such was the letter of this distinguished lady to the once forlorn 
 and decayed gentleman, the scorned at Oxford, and the banished 
 from Foljambe Park. It may be supposed that it exercised my 
 reasoning powers not a little to ascertain whereabouts I was. That 
 I was rather thanked than thought officious, set one fear at rest ; 
 that I was even elevated, by the thought of being esteemed the 
 contrary, my happier feeling convinced me 5 that my zeal as well 
 as danger called forth tears, and if so, " tears such as angels shed," 
 went to my heart. 
 
 But then again, why all this caution, lest I should catch at it 
 improperly ? Why take such pains to shew that though Prince 
 Adolphus had departed, I was never to return? Why, unless the 
 prince was to return too, to claim rights, which would for ever put 
 an end to all other pretensions? 
 
 Add to this, the coupling of his name with mine, as the only 
 other person in the world ready to avenge her, though I alone had 
 had the good fortune to be the champion of her innocence. This 
 failed not to impress me, notwithstanding the return to Germany. 
 No-, there seemed no occasion for Lady Hungerford's caution} it 
 was clear the engagement was not broken, and the subject con- 
 tinued one of thorns. 
 
 Though my situation, therefore, and the pending fate of the 
 marquess, gave me full employ in other matters, I resolved, as 
 soon as this cloud should a little subside (if it did so), to return to 
 the subject with Granville, at least till the real history of the cousins 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 223 
 
 should be developed. To this I thought 1 had now a sort of right; 
 though what right, except from the consequence which a lover 
 thinks he derives from having faced death for his mistress's sake, I 
 could not satisfy even myself. 
 
 Be that as it may, I walked with a more erect chest and a firmer 
 step to the quay, after the receipt of these letters, whenever I went 
 to seek farther news from England. 
 
 The account was favourable. The fever occasioned by the am- 
 putation of the leg had been got under, "and if this continues," said 
 Lord Caslleton, who gave me the intimation, "such is the dislike to 
 me marquess for his conduct, and so little the disposition to be 
 strict with you or your friend Wentworth, that I am told you will be 
 certainly admitted to bail, even if proof could be given against you." 
 
 As for Wentworth, he had grown tired of Calais, and thinking 
 it vastly more comfortable to wait the event at Paris than either 
 Calais or London, he seemed by no means anxious to return to 
 the last to give bail ; and perhaps I might have gone to Paris too, 
 but for my anxiety to lose no more posts than were necessary in 
 hearing from Foljambe Park. 
 
 I certainly heard again, and that soon, but the news brought 
 concerned Granville's happiness rather than the satisfaction of my 
 interests ; for it announced a tide of good fortune. First, his appoint- 
 ment to the splendid embassy he had been so long waiting for 5 
 and next (enviable rogue), his approaching union with the female 
 I most admired, and, but one, most loved in the world. What is 
 more, he was instructed by the whole parly to request me, if I 
 could return in safety, to accompany Lord Caslleton to be present 
 at the ceremony, or if that nobleman could not be spared from his 
 post, to come alone. 
 
 The pen trembled in my hand, and the heart fluttered in my 
 breast, when I said yes! 
 
 There was yet a fortnight to the time, and I became more than 
 ever anxious for the important certificate of the faculty that my 
 antagonist was out of danger. That came at last; and I own (I 
 hope it was not unpardonable, but) I did triumph a little that this 
 disgrace of nobility, this hateful man, had been so severely punished 
 without taking his life. As the lirnb was amputated so high as to 
 dismember him of nearly his thigh as well as leg, he was condemned 
 to crutches for life ; and as the cause of it became a part of his 
 history, and was always remembered, he could no where present 
 himself but as the calumniator of innocence, and the insuller of a 
 woman from disappointment and revenge. 
 
 Impregnable as was his pride, this he could not bear. It was not 
 the mutilation, but the cause of it, that forbade his shewing him- 
 self at court, or indeed extensively in other high society; and, 
 
2*24 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 wholly unable to bear the finger of censure to be pointed at him 
 (not so much for having meanly attempted to sully a lady's reputa- 
 tion, as for having been so punished for it), he once more fled his 
 country, and bestowed himself where he was not so well known, 
 abroad. 
 
 My return to England was now made easy, and the more agreeable 
 from being hailed by the congratulations of numerous acquaintances, 
 some of them friends. Among the latter, I received a warm letter 
 from Manners, and, to my astonishment, a visit from Fothergill, 
 who had been deputed, on the part of Queen's, to the Convocation, 
 and was in town for a few days. 
 
 I had not seen him since my memorable departure from Oxford 
 on the pedestrian excursion which he recommended, and which I 
 considered as the introduction to all the good fortune that had at- 
 tended me since 5 and it may be supposed that we were mutually 
 pleased at meeting ; though, from our constant correspondence, 
 our minds had never been separated. Nevertheless he came, he 
 said, to lecture and blame me for what I had recently done. 
 
 " No doubt," observed he, " the world praises you ; and your own 
 heart, and your mistress's heart ; but I trust I need not tell you that 
 these are all self-deceits, and must not be allowed to overthrow the 
 plain line of your religious duty. To be a chivalrous knight is a fine 
 thing 5 to be a Christian is a finer. Nevertheless, I come not to preach, 
 and own that my joy at your safely, from what I must more than ever 
 think a ruffian, made me forget your breach of duty; and though 
 I cannot praise, I am delighted to congratulate you." 
 
 At these words he again pressed my hand, and I felt both his 
 blame and his affection as I ought. 
 
 " But, now," said he, " as I have but a minute, and I have 
 heard from Lord Castleton of the high career you have opened to 
 yourself ( thanks, you know, to your rusty tutor, who first directed 
 your attention to it ), pray tell me whether you still ' sigh and la- 
 ment you in vain,' or whether you have taken advantage of the 
 absence of a certain Prince Darling, by taking his place?" 
 
 I was astonished at what I thought this affectation of playfulness, 
 so unusual in my sage tutor, to whom indeed I had related all the 
 perplexities the prince had caused me, but had no thought he 
 would thus treat them. Seeing me, therefore, look grave, he re- 
 sumed his own gravity, and in another tone said, 
 
 " Be assured, I meant not to hurt you by my question, which 
 you may suppose was prompted only by my old interest, and as I 
 once strenuously opposed what it was madness in your then situa- 
 tion to encourage, so, after such admirable constancy, I see no 
 reason, now your position is changed, why you should nurse your 
 affection at a distance two things always provided — that Miss 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 225 
 
 Hastings and the prince are not engaged as to heart or hand, and 
 that your own heart tells you you have a prospect of success. 1 ' 
 
 " Alas! " said I, much struck with this counsel, " will, you not 
 think me the same rash, inconsiderate person you used to do, when 
 I tell you I know little as to your first proviso, and nothing at all as 
 to the last? But allow me to express my surprise. What is become 
 of all your strong opinions on the subject of mesalliance? Arc 
 they changed? and do you at last think that if love be mutual, which, 
 God knows ( and mock me not for an upstart fool when I confess 
 it), I have here no reason to imagine, a marriage may really be 
 happy, though the condition of the parties is unequal?" 
 
 Think not," answered he, assuming something of the old tu- 
 tor, " that I am so light in forming or renouncing an opinion. It 
 is not my mind, but your situation, that is changed. This makes 
 all the difference, if a greater indeed is not superadded to it in the 
 changed fortunes of Miss Hastings, who is no longer, I am told by 
 Lord Caslleton himself, the great heiress she was," 
 
 " Lord Caslleton ! — did he speak of this ? I never knew that he 
 took any interest in the family, except, perhaps, for the sake of his 
 niece, Lady Hungerford, whom he almost adores, and who herself 
 f adores Miss Hastings." 
 
 " Exactly so. It was this, and the interest he lakes in you, that 
 made him talk, not merely on the subject of the Hastings' losses, 
 but of your feelings about Ihe family — too plain, he said (especially 
 since the duel), had he even not gathered it from Lady Hungerford, 
 lo be misunderstood. But this is not all." 
 
 Here Fothergill paused. 
 
 " For heaven's sake," cried I, u leave me not on tenter-hooks. 
 Proceed." 
 
 " I think I may venture," continued he; " and, indeed, it 
 was Lord Castleton's suggestions that alone made me broach this 
 conversation as I did, so as I fear to hurt you. He certainly did 
 say, that provided the riddle of Prince Adolphus's pretensions could 
 be cleared up, and Miss Hastings could be favourable to a seven 
 years' constancy, he saw nothing in your situation, and particularly 
 in your farther prospects, that ought to prevent her family from 
 listening to your suit. Nay, he added, that upon that last poinU- 
 that is, as to your fortune and situation in the world— Lady Hun- 
 gerford agreed with him, but declared that, from causes which, as 
 she did not explain them, he did not venture to inquire into, the 
 thing was impossible. This was on her last hasty visit to town, since 
 which she has been silent, and Lord Castleton would have continued 
 so loo, had not your contest with Lord Albany revived Ihe subject." 
 
 " Lord Castleton," observed I, much pleased, " is a great autho- 
 rity upon any subject, and what he says of my situation, as to eir~ 
 ii. 15 
 
226 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 cumstances, is encouraging. But, alas ! he can know little of Ber- 
 tha's heart, unless from Lady Hungerford, and there, I own, I have 
 no hope, as that lady has persisted to the last in desiring me not to 
 encourage it, from any thing favourable in her power to commu- 
 nicate. 1 ' 
 
 " And yet," replied Fothergill, " unless really engrossed by her 
 cousin, there is a great deal in what Lord Castleton observed upon it." 
 u For heaven's sake, what?" 
 
 " Why, when I called, I found that, after some hours' work, he 
 was unbending at luncheon, with a volume of Marmontel before 
 him, which he says he is still fond of, for the pleasure it gave him 
 in his youth. The tale was the Heureux divorce, in which, you 
 know, there was something like your adventure with Lord Albany. 
 At least Blainze (though so far unlike Albany, that he was rather a 
 coxcomb than a brute) insults the character of the heroine, vouch- 
 ing facts for it, which Clairfons, one of her admirers, disbelieves, 
 and casts the lie in his teeth. They fight : Blainze is nearly killed, 
 and Clairfons wounded." 
 
 " What is the inference?" asked I. 
 
 " What Lord Castleton pointed out from the book, when we after- 
 wards fell upon your subject : — 4 Une femme se defend mal centre 
 un homme qui la defend si bien' — implying (still, however, upon 
 the supposition that the prince is not in the way), that the risk you 
 ran for her sake would go far with Miss Hastings in your favour, 
 should you address her." 
 
 Here the teazing man looked at his watch, and saying he would be 
 loo late for an engagement at Lambeth, most provokingly left me, 
 when I most wanted to consult him. 
 
 What could all this mean? Fothergill, the impregnable, perse- 
 vering, unchanging Fothergill, who had for so many years been 
 endeavouring to root out this deep-seated attachment; who had al- 
 most told me to despair and die, rather than hope, much less seek 
 success 5 now, as it were, to enlist on the opposite side, and preach 
 a total change; backed, too, as he said, by Lord Castleton himself, 
 who had never yet seemed lo take the least interest, or even to be 
 acquainted with the affair ! 
 
 Surely I was born to be the sport of mystery, pursued as I was 
 by such contending representations as appeared between this last, 
 and those I had so lately received both from Granville and Lady 
 Hungerford, particularly the latter. 
 
 The lime, however, approached when I thought I should at least 
 put the matter out of doubt ; for I felt that, once again at Foljambe 
 Park, it would not be easy to disguise the real position of the cousins 
 together, nor difficult to discover from both Mr. Hastings and Bertha 
 how far I was, or was not, in the situation of a proscribed man, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 227 
 
 With this persuasion, I began with fear and trembling to pre- 
 pare for my visit. It was, however, retarded several days by a 
 most mournful event, and as unexpected as mournful, which filled 
 me with distress, and, at first, with disabling grief. The reader will 
 believe this when I inform him it was the sudden death of the excel- 
 lent Manners. I call it sudden, though his preceding illness lasted 
 some days, at first without any apprehension of danger ; for it was 
 only for the last twelve hours that any very great fear for him was 
 entertained. His hale and green old age (for he was little more 
 than sixty), his sound constitution, and still more, his calm and phi- 
 losophic spirit, gave any expectation but of a sudden removal. But 
 he fell a victim to what has cut off stronger men than himself. It 
 seems, in one of his perambulations, he was overtaken, on a shelter- 
 less moor, by a thunder-storm, which drenched him in a moment; 
 and yet, notwithstanding his prudence, he continued for hours in 
 his wet clothes. The consequence was, cold, fever, and inflamma- 
 tion of the chest, which, on the fifth day, deprived the world of 
 one of the best. of its inhabitants. 
 
 Well may I think him so, and heaven knows how all my other 
 anxieties merged in the great one of his loss, which totally un- 
 fitted me for the excursion proposed, while for several days it ac- 
 tually deprived me of the interest, absorbing as it had been, which 
 had belonged to it. 
 
 The event happened at Bardolfe, where he was so interested in 
 the fitting up the lodging he had proposed for himself, that he re- 
 mained two whole months, and had there received the account of 
 my collision with Lord Albany. I know not whether that had any 
 influence in his after procedure, or whether from the warmth of 
 his impulses he had before resolved upon it 5 but it was after the 
 rencontre, that he annexed a codicil to his will, by which he realized 
 the sort of romantic wish he had conceived, of making me owner of 
 Bardolfe Castle, by bequeathing me that loved old place, and the 
 estate belonging to it. 
 
 But what shall I say to the will itself, and what will the reader 
 think of my prosperous fortune, when he learns that my munificent 
 benefactor, having really no near heirs (for his heir at law was most 
 remote, and not personally known to him), had bequeathed the 
 Grange and the estate annexed to it (about 1,200/. a year) to his 
 new-found and highly-favoured kinsman? The Baddlesmere pro- 
 perty, full 4,0007. a year, which came by his mother, he had, with 
 the justice belonging to him, left to his mother's heir at law. 
 
 Tbis immediately occasioned a vast alteration in my prospects of 
 every kind, and Lord Castleton particularly congratulated me upon 
 them, though ho felt as much as myself for the loss of a friend, 
 who he said (and truly) did honour to human nature. 
 
DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 The event, I was told, would require my almost immediate at- 
 tendance both at the Grange and in the north. I passed two days 
 at the first, and would have been impatient to proceed to the last, 
 but was too much interested to fulfil my engagement at Foljambe, 
 not to postpone it till after the nuptials. Meantime that journey lay 
 every mile of it in the way, and after apprizing Granville of these 
 additional smiles of fortune, I set out, with what feelings may be 
 imagined. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MY THIRD VISIT TO FOLJAMBE PARR, AND RECEPTION THERE BY MR. HASTINGS AND 
 BERTHA. 1 -—! RESOLVE TO PUT THE QUESTION OF PRINCE ADOLPHUS OUT OF DOUBT. 
 
 My heart is great, but it must break with silence 
 Ere H be disburthen'd with a liberal tongue. 
 
 Nay, speak thy mind. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Richard IS. 
 
 My heart beat high as, for the third time in my life, I drove 
 through the well-known gales of Foljambe. I seemed to recognise 
 every tree which formed the avenue leading up to the house. 
 What scenes, was vicissitudes, struggles, resolutions, formed and 
 broken in a moment ! What new ideas, people, and pursuits, had 
 engaged me, since, 
 
 " Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," 
 
 1 last passed through these gates, as I thought, never to return! 
 
 The sickening feeling of that desolate morning, when I was vir- 
 tually dismissed by Bertha from her acquaintance, was still so strong 
 in my remembrance, that I actually felt the same sensations now, 
 though recalled in so distinguished a manner. 
 
 Yet, did I owe my recal to Bertha herself, or only to the favour 
 of her nearest relation and the most beloved of her friends ? 
 
 This was a question which I did not like to answer. But, at any 
 rale, I did not return the poor, unprovided Sedburgh adventurer, 
 the comparative outcast, who knew not where to lay his head, yet 
 dared to hug a hopeless passion to his heart preferring its object, 
 with despair, to any other with the certainty of success. I surveyed 
 my neat travelling carriage with complacency, and thought of my 
 Norman extraction with more unction than ever, especially when 
 ! remembered Mr. Hastings' little ebullition in the moment of his 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 229 
 
 gratitude, that his ancestors and mine had both fought on the same 
 side. 
 
 So far so good. But how did this affect the main point? Was 
 either the hand or heart of Bertha free ? Or, if both were so, what 
 reason had / to hope success ? What favour had she ever shewn 
 me, beyond the disclosure of the cheerful feelings of a naive and 
 free-hearted girl, in all the openness of sweet fifteen, which bad 
 never been taught disguise? After that time, though kind, because 
 alive to kindness shewn to her in hours of great tribulation, what 
 sign was there of encouragement to hope for affection ? On the con- 
 trary, a most determined and weji-sustained resolution to let me 
 depart for ever, the moment she discovered my feelings for her, 
 without a sign that they were partaken 5 to say nothing of the mys- 
 terious and brilliant rival, who, whether beloved or not, must, if 
 report said true, have occupied all, or very much of her interest, 
 perhaps of her heart. 
 
 These were reflections as sad as they were obvious ; and yet, 
 strange to say, had never presented themselves to me in such force 
 as at this moment, when not only were they least welcome, but 
 when it was of most importance that they should all be forgotten. 
 But thus it is with our poor nature : what we might look upon as 
 friendly beacons, we labour to forget or destroy \ and when in a 
 disposition to be directed by them, it is almost always too late. 
 
 Will it be believed, that the recollections I have described got 
 such hold of me as I advanced to the scene of action, that I actually 
 debated whether I could not turn back,— when I beheld Granville 
 and Lady Hungerford coming down the avenue to meet me? There 
 was at best no hope now of escaping, and I prepared to greet them 
 as I ought. 
 
 I was soon out of my chaise, and the hearty and joyous welcome 
 they gave me dissipated the cloudy thoughts with which I had en- 
 tered these once happy precincts. Their walk, the air, and no doubt 
 their blissful situation, threw such looks of delight about them, 
 that they both seemed particularly handsome, and I could have 
 eyed them askance for envy, as the devil did our first parents, bui 
 that I loved them— ay, as much as the devil hated Adam and Eve. 
 
 It is very certain I never saw Lady Hungerford with such feel- 
 ings of admiration and interest. An approaching marriage, thought 
 I , is a great heightener of beauty • and she certainly appeared more 
 beautiful, as well as more gracious, than ever. For, though she 
 was now some two or three and thirty years old, and had conse- 
 quently lost the bloom of girlhood, she had not lost that look of in- 
 genuousness which contributes so much to render girlhood enchant- 
 ing. On the other hand, she had not parted with a shape that was 
 perfect, and a grace that was all her own ; in short, to use her 
 
230 • DE CLIFFORD^ 
 
 favourite word, that tournure, in which, I should say, she was as 
 inimitable as irresistible. 
 
 My first inquiry was after Mr. Hastings. He was well. 
 
 " And Miss Hastings?" 
 
 " Well,- but too seldom quits her father to come with us. You 
 will see her at dinner." 
 
 " Not before ? " said I, looking at my watch. 
 
 Granville and Lady Hungerford smiled with one another, yet I 
 thought good-humouredly, though I own I felt mortified. " She 
 deputes her friends to receive me," said I to myself. "Would she 
 have done so had it been the prince?" I did not like the omen. 
 
 Whether I looked blank and unhappy I don't know, but I sup- 
 pose I did ; for Lady Hungerford immediately said, playfully and 
 yet earnestly, 
 
 u Lord De Clifford must mind and behave well, or I shall repent 
 having got leave to ask him to this solemnity 5 for pray observe, it 
 was my doing, and not this gentleman's 5 so you are my guest." 
 
 u And had the family I am come to visit no share in it?" asked 
 I. " I at least hoped it had been a joint invitation." 
 
 " Your wish was father to this, it seems," replied the lady 5 " and 
 if that will satisfy you, itynust be owned they fell willingly into the 
 proposal. Still the proposal was mine." 
 
 I bowed 5 but own I felt a little disappointed. 
 
 We had by this lime reached the house, or rather the stable-yard, 
 in which a side door opened into the mansion 5 we having, by I 
 know not what inadvertency, taken that road to it. I mention it, 
 however, only to note the impression it made on me, in comparing 
 it with former times. Instead of four or five stable-people, whom I 
 had remembered always busy about the carriages and horses, one 
 solitary groom was occupied with a low park chair ; and instead of 
 six superb coach-horses, and carriages of different sorts, the stables 
 and houses, which were all open, exhibited but one pony, a riding- 
 horse, and a post-chariot, shrouded up in a canvass cover, as if sel- 
 dom used. 
 
 The thought immediately crossed me (and it made me melan- 
 choly) that Mr. Hastings, from his losses, had been thus forced to 
 reduce his establishment. At the same time I cannot deny that, as 
 far as / was concerned, there was something not disagreeable in it, 
 as bringing me more upon a level with him 5 while the recollection 
 of Granville's account of the sweet Bertha's resignation to her al- 
 tered prospects gave a glance of sunshine to my mind, and only 
 made me more anxious to see and love her for it. 
 
 On entering the house there was the same diminution of conse- 
 quence. In lieu of two footmen covered with livery lace, who used 
 generally to perambulate the hall, and give notice of visitors to a 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 231 
 
 groom of the chambers, Ihere was neither footman nor groom of 
 the chambers to be seen, but Granville leading the way into the 
 well-known music-room, we took our stations there without any 
 harbinger. Here we remained in chat till Lady Hungerford said she 
 would go to Bertha's sitting-room, and Granville went out to an- 
 nounce my arrival to his uncle. 
 
 Left alone, the solitude of the house, compared to what I had 
 remembered it, was the first thing that struck me ; and I then exa- 
 mined, and recognised, with something like melancholy, many of 
 the gay pieces of furniture, the instruments and pictures which had 
 inspired my inexperienced boyhood with such awe, on my first 
 visit, full seven years before. 
 
 But my eyes were soon arrested by an accession to the pictures, 
 which there was no mistaking— Prince Adolphus himself, in full 
 uniform 5 somewhat different, because rather more manly from 
 being a little older, and handsomer, than the engraving which had 
 so fixed me in the summer-house. It seemed to have been recently 
 done 5 was evidently a foreign portrait-, and I concluded had been 
 but just hung in the place of honour which it occupied—over the 
 chimney. 
 
 Shall I own that, however unreasonably, my heart sickened 
 with jealousy. The fact spoke volumes, and effectually overthrew 
 all the surmises and inferences arising from the accounts of my in- 
 accurate and ill informed friends, as I thought them (perhaps with 
 some spleen), when they talked of his departure, not to return. 
 Even his own denial of his engagement, to the queen, seemed 
 clearly now a disguise of the truth, or a mistake of Lord Caslleton's, 
 who related it to me. Any way, I thought myself the sport of cir- 
 cumstances. The indifference which was to keep Bertha from her 
 old friend, till dinner-time, was perfectly accounted for, and I la- 
 mented, with some hauteur, that I had taken so long a journey to 
 visit a person not her own mistress. 
 
 In these reflections I passed many minutes far from pleasantly, 
 and was angry with my hosts for leaving me so long, — when I be- 
 held at a distance, in the flower-garden, the two ladies walking in 
 earnest conversation. 
 
 For a moment my anger, jealousy, melancholy (call it what you 
 will), fled like a summer cloud. I had only eyes, and certainly only 
 heart for Bertha. I would not believe a word of the engagement ; 
 the picture might have been a mere offrande from the prince to 
 his uncle $ the prince could not have been guilty of deceiving the 
 queen ; and my dear, good friends, could not have been mis-in- 
 formed. 
 
 What to do — whether to join them unasked, or wait till I was 
 invited, was the question,— when Granville, joining the party, 
 
232 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 suddenly diverged into the plantation walk, carrying his mistress 
 along with him, and leaving mine alone. 
 
 In a thousand minds what to do, I watched her movements, 
 which were to her favourite garden-room — the summer-house— 
 and sallying out, I resolved, if possible, to accost her there. As I 
 approached it, I felt strangely perturbed, both from present inten- 
 tions and former recollections j for it seemed but yesterday that I 
 had parted from her on that very spot, with what feelings of morti- 
 fication may be remembered. Were they now more happy ? Less 
 mortified, certainly, but whether more hopeful remained as much 
 as ever in doubt. 
 
 The door of the summer-house faced a long walk of honeysuckle, 
 syringas, and lilacs, forming a bower of sweets, and, hearing foot- 
 steps, Bertha came to the room door, fancying it, as she afterwards 
 said, her friends rejoining her. What were my own feelings when, 
 on discovering who it was, she started and turned pale, and, in a 
 hurried manner, closed a book she had been reading, and which 
 she still held in one hand. However, she very frankly gave me the 
 other, and though her eye, at first, seemed to avoid mine, she said, 
 with that softness of voice, which no one ever possessed but 
 herself, 
 
 u Oh, Mr. De Clifford, how rude you must have thought me not 
 to have immediately appeared to welcome you on your arrival, par- 
 ticularly (and here she a little faltered) after all you have done for 
 us. Good heavens ! what might not your friendship have cost you I** 
 
 Here, though her eye was still averted, she allowed me still to 
 retain her hand, while I said, with the emotion I felt, 
 
 "Pray mention it not; for believe, that to find you do not 
 disapprove, or hate me for my officiousness, makes this event the 
 proudest and happiest of my life. 51 
 
 " Hate you ! Mr. Clifford," said she (here, at last, raising her 
 dark speaking eyes, which seemed to glisten as she spoke)— "hate 
 you for protecting the unprotected ! and whom you had so little rea- 
 son to care for." 
 
 At these words the book she had still held dropt from her disen- 
 gaged hand, and from its well-known and pretty binding, I saw it 
 was the Gresset, which in happier days she had given me, and I 
 had, perhaps churlishly, returned. 
 
 A slight gleam tinged her cheek when she saw I had perceived 
 it, but she continued the strain she had begun. 
 
 41 If you knew," said she, " the affliction, the terror, which the 
 news of your danger for our sakes gave us, you would not use such 
 words. For, though I see you safe, I cannot help even now shud- 
 dering, as I always have, at the thought of— that cruel man." 
 
 Here she trembled so violently as' to leave no doubt, had I beer* 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 233 
 
 disposed to it, as to the sincerity of her assertion. Recovering, she 
 went on. 
 
 " I do trust Lady Hungerford and my cousin Granville conveyed 
 to you, in part at least, what my poor father and I felt of gratitude 
 for your noble conduct, and how thankful we were that you were 
 preserved." 
 
 " Be assured," I replied, " my dear Miss Hastings " (and I was 
 most sincere when I said it), " to be rewarded with such sweet 
 words would not only make me cheerfully risk, but lose my life in 
 such a cause." 
 
 " I cannot thank you," said she, agitated and trembling still 
 more, as she almost fell into a chair — and the two or three minutes' 
 silence which ensued, while she hid her face in her hand, spoke 
 more eloquent thanks than till language could have supplied. 
 
 I know not what I was able to think of this — certainly it shewed 
 any thing but indifference, any thing but want of gratitude 5 but not 
 only this might be the mere ebullition of a feeling heart, alive to 
 what it esteemed a most important service, and therefore not incom- 
 patible with pre-engaged affections 5 but as she rose from her chair, 
 and her eye encountered the memorable engraving of her cousin, 
 still in its place, she gave an involuntary, but very audible sigh, 
 and sat down again, much moved. 
 
 I was not less so myself, and a silence of some moments ensued, 
 in which I seemed under a cloud of contending ideas. At last, look- 
 ing round the room, I said, though with hesitation, 
 
 " When I recollect, what indeed I have never for one moment 
 forgotten, the misery and convulsion of heart I felt the last lime I 
 was in this place, how little likely did it seem that I should ever see 
 it or you again, all I can say is, that I am grateful to you for ad- 
 mitting me to it once r ire ; although I fear apology is necessary 
 for having intruded myself upon you, especially as I see it is a sa- 
 cred spot, marked for privacy, and which, if only for containing 
 that striking resemblance of your princely cousin, it would be pro- 
 fane to violate. The interest I had, and always shall have in it, in- 
 duced me to direct my steps hither; but be assured, dear Miss 
 Hastings, it is a liberty I will not repeat ; and only let me add, if I 
 do not offend by alluding to reports so intimately concerning your 
 happiness, that you have not a friend on earth who is more anxious 
 for that happiness than myself." 
 
 The ingenuous, and perhaps too sensitive girl was evidently af- 
 fected with this address, though the effect of it, from the expression 
 of her countenance, I could not exactly collect. Her cheek became 
 much suffused — her eye cast down — she again sighed— and at 
 length, as I thought, looked so displeased, that I could not help 
 exclaiming, 
 
4 234 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 " lam most unfortunate 5 for it is absolutely unaccountable that 
 the man who respects you most of any thing under heaven should 
 be even able to offend you. If you knew my concern at it, you 
 would I am sure forgive me, for I would rather die than displease 
 you by impertinent allusions, and dearly shall I pay for the, I fear, 
 unwarrantable freedom I have taken." 
 
 At these words, seeing that she remained in a sort of immoveable 
 abstraction, which I did not know how to construe, I hastily left 
 the summer-house, and relumed to the hall. 
 
 Mr. Hastings, who I found had been asleep when I arrived, 
 which had given his daughter an opportunity to walk out with 
 Lady Hungerford, was not yet visible, and I was again left alone, 
 much to my content, for I wanted leisure to revolve all that had 
 just passed. But, except that Bertha, in point of person and man- 
 ner, was more sweet and attractive than ever (indeed she was now 
 in the full zenilh of her charms), I could come to no positive con- 
 clusion on what I had seen and heard, in regard to her cousin, 
 though it was evident he was any thing but indifferent to her. The 
 sigh on encountering his portrait, and her apparent displeasure at 
 my allusion to her situation with him (though, had she refused him, 
 they might have been thought not inconsistent with that circum- 
 stance), made me think her being thus affected could only arise 
 from her concern that they should be separated. Her emotion in 
 expressing her thanks to me, and her interest for my safety, I 
 thought only natural in so soft a mind, and I augured absolutely 
 nothing more from them. 
 
 Such was the result of my self-examination, which I had no plea- 
 sure in continuing, when the buller brought me word that Mr. Has- 
 tings would be glad to see me. 
 
 I found him still reposing upon his sofa, and in truth exhibiting 
 the signs of a person who had been at the brink of death. Yet he 
 had still that high-bred air of a man of birth and good company, of 
 which his recent illness, any more than his retired life, could not 
 deprive him. 
 
 Bertha, who had returned, was sitting by him, and exhibited an 
 appearance totally the reverse of what she had been not half-an- 
 hour before. She was cheerful, and even gay, complimenting her 
 father upon the good looks which their little airing in the pony- 
 chair had given him, and herself on her skill in driving him. 
 
 He welcomed me more warmly than he had ever done before, 
 and was going profusely into thanks for the zeal I had shewn for 
 him and his house, when, with some difficulty, I stopt him, telling 
 him I had already been more than rewarded by what Miss Has- 
 tings had been so good as to say. Upon which, putting again his 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 235 
 
 while hand into mine, he shook me with it, and kindly fixing his 
 eyes on me, observed, 
 
 "All I can say is, you are a brave man, and prove how impos- 
 sible it is for one who has a gentleman's blood in him ever to forget 
 that he is a. gentleman." 
 
 This speech, pleasant in itself, was made ten times more so by 
 my observing, what no vanity could make me mistake — the con- 
 scious pleasure it occasioned in his daughter, as if her own mind 
 echoed the sentiment, and approved its application. Her look was 
 downcast when it met mine upon it, but conveyed any thing but the 
 constraint and displeasure I thought I had so recently observed. I 
 had a thousand busy notions upon it, and again thanked Lord Al- 
 bany for an outrage which had produced me such a reception from 
 those whose favour was of the last importance to my happiness. 
 
 The conversation, however, now changed, and Mr. Hastings, as- 
 suming a graver air, observed, 
 
 " You are in mourning, I see, and well you may be; for, from 
 all accounts, you have lost a friend not easily replaced ; judging 
 from his letters to me, a gentlemanly man, and of an exceeding 
 pure old Norman family. What he has done for you is inestimable, 
 for the king himself cannot re-seat a well-descended gentleman in 
 the identical castle of his ancestors, and you may be proud that, 
 through the Considerate kindness of this excellent person, there is 
 revived in you a Bardolfe of Bardolfe, for such you are, though 
 your other name may be still more celebrated." 
 
 "It was, I remember, a favourite notion of Mr. Manners," said 
 I, "but I thought only a playful one, as well as the title he some- 
 times gave me of son. I little thought how soon it would be rea- 
 lized. I owe him, however, far more than the benefit he has con- 
 ferred upon me in point of fortune; not less than all the prospects I 
 have in the world 5 and to crown all, I verily believe, the pleasure 
 of being here at this moment." 
 
 At these words I fixed my eyes on Bertha, and thought she looked 
 as if she understood me. 
 
 " But," continued I, "who could foresee it, when I first, by the 
 merest accident, made Mr. Manners' acquaintance; went home 
 with him to his house, and only found, by that chance, that he was 
 my kinsman? It was absolute romance." 
 
 "And yet that is no wonder," said Bertha, smiling at the recol- 
 lection ; "for Mr. De Clifford cannot have forgotten the prophecy 
 of poor Mademoiselle La Porte, who, even in those days of pu- 
 pillage, foretold that he would become un heros de roman*" 
 
 I well remembered that prophecy, and how it turned my head 
 
 1 See Vol. I. p. 38. 
 
•236 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 at the time, and was going to observe upon it, when the entrance 
 of Granville and Lady Hungerford, returned from their walk, put 
 an end to this part of the conversation, though I felt a secret joy at 
 the proof thus given by Bertha that the happy days of old were not 
 entirely forgotten 5 and I began almost to think myself mistaken, 
 at least as to her feelings of displeasure against me, whatever might 
 be her thoughts of the prince, when looking at his portrait. 
 
 At dinner Bertha was equally gay. The daily progress of her 
 father; her usefulness to him ; his delight in her] and her's in the 
 approaching happiness of her best friends y — all contributed to give 
 a freedom to her deportment and conversation which I had not 
 witnessed since the days of Mademoiselle's prophecy concerning 
 myself; and, towards myself, there was no longer any constraint, 
 so that she would have been more and more irresistible, but for the 
 incubus, as I may call it, of her cousin, which slill haunted and 
 pressed me down with a weight which I could not shake off. Yet 
 our evening concluded with music, in which the harp of Bertha, the 
 piano of Lady Hungerford, and the voices of both, did beautiful 
 justice to the airs and rich accompaniments of Sacchini and Bach. 
 
 But Oh ! the prince ! the prince ! Was there no way of clearing 
 up this eternal riddle? Was Bertha's present cheerfulness the result 
 of happy security, certain of being gratified at a given time? and had 
 my friends, after all, and with all their caution, got leave to invite 
 me to a banquet mixed with poison? If so, this pleasing scene 
 could only renew feelings in a ten-fold degree, from which, one of 
 them for months, and another for years, had been doing every thing 
 possible to wean me. 
 
 No 5 I was now finally determined, and resolved that this uncer- 
 (ainty should not last another unnecessary hour. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI,, 
 
 I HAVE VERY DECISIVE CONFERENCES WITH GRANVILLE, AND OBTAIN THE FACT OF 
 BERTHA'S SITUATION IN RESPECT TO HER ENGAGEMENT, BUT NOT AS TO HER 
 AFFECTIONS. 
 
 But as thou art a prince, I fear thee, 
 As I fear the roaring of a lion's whelp. 
 
 Shakspeare.— 1 Eemy IV, 
 
 The next day, in consequence of my resolve, I look Granville to 
 a seat under a wide-spreading oak in the park, at a distance from 
 the house, and had a full and free expostulation with him. To do 
 him justice, whether his own heart was too happy to trifle with 
 
OR, TF1E CONSTANT MAN. 237 
 
 mine, or his sense of justice was concerned, he seemed far more 
 frank and friendly to my views lhan he had been, so far at least as 
 they required that the question as to the prince should be set at rest. 
 At the same lime he desired me to mark emphatically that he pre- 
 tended to know nothing of what had been Bertha's feelings towards 
 her cousin, or what they were towards any one else. He allowed 
 that there had been a great mystery in regard to the prince, which 
 Lady Hungerford agreed with him, when they invited me to the 
 park, perhaps knowing the state of my heart, they ought to be 
 prepared to unravel; but they were restrained by duty to Bertha, 
 whose secrets they had no right to reveal, and whose delicacy they 
 were bound to respect. 
 
 " Heaven forbid," said I, " that it should ever be violated by any 
 wish of mine; but I put it to your's and Lady Hungerford's justice 
 to say how far you have been consistent with all your former caution, 
 when, keeping me from all hope of finding her free, or rather from 
 all knowledge whatever of her situation, and knowing every feeling 
 of my own heart, you invited me once more to encounter the danger 
 of her presence?" 
 
 He looked convinced, or rather convicted. 
 
 "To tell you the truth," said he, "both Lady Hungerford and 
 myself feel that we have plunged you, ourselves, and Bertha too, 
 into a dilemma, from which it is difficult to escape ; and our only 
 excuse is in the joy we felt at your noble conduct, your safety after 
 it, and our wish that so true a friend should witness our own ap- 
 proaching happiness. 
 
 "For Honora and myself, we see no reason why you should not 
 know the exact position in which Bertha and her cousin stand 
 together; but the disclosure of it, without asking permission, would 
 be to betray confidence 5 and to ask permission might and would 
 cruelly alarm her. You yourself protest against hurting a delicacy 
 hitherto as white as snow, in defence of which, too, you have shewn 
 yourself so dauntless a champion. Would you press us to do this? " 
 
 "Certainly not; but how do you shew me that to reveal her 
 exact position, merely as to her being free, or not free, would 
 affect a delicacy as dear to me as to you or Lady Hungerford?" 
 
 " Can we, ought we," replied he, " to do more lhan she would 
 do herself?" 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " Well then, if free, would it not be advertising for an offer, if 
 she were voluntarily to tell you so? If engaged, would it not be 
 arrogating the notion that your attachment to her continues, if she 
 apprized you of her state, in mere mercy to yours?" 
 
 " Her modesty," said I, " forbids both suppositions." 
 
 "There is but one way, then," answered he, "to gel at the 
 
238 DE CLIFFORD', 
 
 truth, without compromising our honour or her dignity, and thai 
 probably you are not prepared to pursue." 
 
 " Name it, and let me judge." 
 
 "Ask her, herself." 
 
 "Would not that be making her a conditional offer?" 
 " It would." 
 
 "Yet you know not her mind towards me." 
 "I do not." 
 
 "Then thus it stands. If I ask, and she tells me her heart is 
 not her own, I may have the benefit and pleasure of knowing it. 
 
 If free, I may gain what? Her hand? No ; but permission to 
 
 court it, subject, after all, to rejection. But as I am yet any thing 
 but in possession of a return of affection, I must proceed in uncer- 
 tainty, and may not succeed after all. This will never do." 
 
 " I feared so," said Granville; and here we both paused. 
 
 At length he continued, 6 6 Were Prince Adolphus out of the ques- 
 tion, let me ask, what would be your conduct?" 
 
 "Thinking her free, I might address her like any other; but 
 like any other, I should be guided by my own discretion, when to 
 think myself in a situation to hope for success before I proposed. 
 Here my very question as to her freedom makes the proposal, and 
 I have no discretion at all." 
 
 "If by any other means, then, you knew she was free, you 
 would propose?" 
 
 c< Not quite so. I would, as I have said, only in the first instance 
 make experiments, and exercise my judgment as to the chance of 
 success." 
 
 " I understand you," said Granville, thoughtfully ; " you are at 
 least reasonable. I have told you, and I repeat, that I know not 
 how you stand with Bertha. And whatever your hopes, on a regular 
 trial, and however prosperously changed your situation, it cannot 
 be expected that she will surrender on a twenty-four hours' siege, 
 even if the handsome and amiable German have no place in her 
 heart." 
 
 I wished the German at the devil, when Granville said this. 
 
 " But the question is, whether you will commence that siege, to 
 decide which, you desire, as you have a right to do, information. 
 I have already told you my difficulty, which you have received 
 most like a gentleman. I now so far relax in my answer, as to ask 
 for time. Meet me here two hours hence, and you shall hear 
 further." 
 
 I concluded he wished to consult his betrothed, and told him so. 
 He said nothing, but walked away, leaving me on thorns. 
 
 To get rid of them, I returned to the house, where, instead of 
 his being closeted with Lady Hungerford, I found hirn knocking 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 239 
 
 the balls about, rather than playing at billiards, with Bertha, both 
 of them in the most lackadaisical manner— Bertha waiting to be 
 summoned by her father, after he should have finished dressing, • 
 Granville, as I found, to be joined by his mistress, bonneted and 
 cloaked for a walk. 
 
 This induced me to ask permission to take his place at table, 
 which was granted with alacrity ; for the lady was in high glee at 
 the further improvement of her parent, who had had an excellent 
 night, which he had been pleased to say was owing to my visit 
 having done him good. 
 
 " The least I can do for you in return," said Bertha, " is to let 
 you beat me at billiards ; for as you are not occupied with something 
 else, like cousin Granville, whom I now always beat, I suppose 
 that will be my fate." 
 
 "My mind," said I, " will certainly not be absent from the 
 table j" — and we began-, but the lady not only beat me hollow, but 
 seemed to enjoy her victory with even exuberant spirits. 
 
 This is any thing but being in love, thought I; yet, afterwards, I 
 retracted, and thought high spirits a proof of a lover's happiness. 
 
 A message from papa prevented a second game, and I prepared 
 to sally out to attend my engagement with Granville. 
 
 In my state of feeling, every incident is of consequence, and 
 while I previously took a turn in the music-room, rapt in thought, 
 I was roused by the entrance of my old friend, Mrs. Margaret. 
 She was a lady not used to stand upon forms, so accosted me at 
 once with, 
 
 "Lord! Sir, I have been watching all yesterday and to day, to 
 say how glad we are to see you; and they say you are looking so 
 much better than you used, which indeed I see ; and you are grown 
 such a grand gentleman, and a rich, and in Parliament; and I sup- 
 pose we shall have no more wanderings at night — though, for that 
 matter, the poachers have left off coming here. Ah ! Sir, I shall 
 never forget it." 
 
 "Nor I neither, dear Mrs. Margaret," said I, seeing her rather 
 out of breath. 
 
 "Well now," continued she; "only think! — dear Mrs. Mar- 
 garet ! as if it was not seven years ago when you were such a very 
 young gentleman, and Miss Bertha such a little lady. But it proves 
 what I always say, like my good master, a gentleman's a gentleman 
 all the world over, and never forgets he is a gentleman. Ah! Sir, 
 we have had many chops and changes since them days." 
 
 "And since I was last here, loo, Mrs. Margaret," observed I; 
 " when you were so good to my broken head." 
 
 "O! that was all along of Miss Bertha," replied the soubrette } 
 but, when I rather caught at this, she dashed it down again by 
 
240 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 saying, u Indeed, as to that, she would have been just the same had 
 it been one of the footmen." 
 
 "She is always good," said I, and I could not help looking at 
 the large painting of the prince over the chimney-piece. 
 
 "Ah!" cried Margaret, observing it ; 44 that is one of the chan- 
 ges I talked of. That was not here when you was here. A fine 
 man that; don't you think so, Sir? He brought it over with him 
 from Germany, they say at master's desire, and gave it to him, or 
 Miss BertUa, I don't know which." 
 
 I never longed so much to ask a few questions of any one as I 
 did then of Mrs. Margaret ; but repressed my curiosity as unseemly, 
 with the hope, however, that she would go on of herself, in which 
 I was not disappointed. 
 
 " Now," said she, conning the picture again, 44 1 cannot see 
 what there is in them there foreigners which they say is to beat our 
 English, I say an Englishman for my money, even though he 
 be a prince. And so I said once to my young lady, as I was un- 
 dressing her one night. 4 Ma'am,' said I — but here pausing, and 
 going on in a whisper, she added, 44 1 suppose you know the 
 prince came over to marry Miss Bertha, and perhaps is to do so 
 still?" 
 
 44 Perhaps do so still!" exclaimed I; 44 1 thought it was cer- 
 tain." 
 
 But I checked myself, though I fear my countenance told tales 
 to the sagacious Margaret, who indeed had never forgotten former 
 discoveries. 
 
 " Why," observed she (lowering her voice still more), u we 
 never could make that exactly out; and when he first came he 
 seemed shy, and any thing but a lover, and that's what made me 
 say an Englishman was worth twenty Germans, though to be sure 
 the prince was vastly handsome. However, said I one night, 
 'Ma'am,' said 1, 4 though we all guess what his highness (we all 
 called him his highness) is come for, I don't think he is gay enough 
 for a young English lady. Why, Sir Harry Melford was much 
 livelier, and Mr. Granville, and even Mr. Clifford,' meaning you, 
 Sir, begging pardon; but all of a sudden mistress lurned excessive 
 red, and never was so angry with me in her life— nay, she never 
 was angry with me before. 4 Margaret,' said she, 4 you take great 
 liberties both with the prince and me, and all the gentlemen you 
 have named, and I charge you never to name any of them again, 
 particularly Mr. Clifford;' meaning you again, Sir, though I am 
 sure I don't know why ; for the day as you went away (I am sure I 
 remember it as if it were yesterday), she was shut up all day, and 
 never held up her head for two days after. Indeed, to be sure, she 
 was very ill; and master, he was in such a fuss, and sent for Mr 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 241 
 
 Sandford, and a packet came from Germany, and that always made 
 
 all the family grave. But, Lord bless me! there is my young 
 
 lady's bell, and she be a-going to drive master out. I hope, Sir, 
 you will not say any thing of this gallimaufry 1 of mine, which 
 perhaps is very wrong of me, because servants, you know, are ser- 
 vants, and should never talk of the secrets of families; but I was 
 so glad to see you, and know you so like to hear any thing about 
 Miss Bertha, that I could not help it." 
 
 Here the bell ringing again, she hurried out of the room, leaving 
 me astounded al her volubility, and not a little at a loss to un- 
 derstand her exact meaning. 
 
 I had no time to analyze it 5 for the two hours had expired, and 
 I hastened to the trysting tree, where I found Granville wailing 
 for me. 
 
 He began immediately on the expected subject. 
 
 " You judged rightly," said he, " that I wished to consult Lady 
 Hungerford. Not only is she a party concerned, but a woman un- 
 derstands a woman's case better than a man ; and, of all women, 
 you will not be surprised if I value the judgment of this dear and 
 high-minded lady the most in the world." 
 
 " With me," said I, "that needs no proof; but what's the 
 result?" 
 
 " Favourable," replied he, " to your wishes, as far as I know, 
 or could answer for their extent. For when I told her that you had 
 assured me you only desired to be informed of the position between 
 Bertha and her cousin, in order to take your resolution, either 
 ultimately to propose to her if free, or abandon the pursuit if 
 engaged, adding the consideration of your augmented fortune, she 
 said she was sure Mr. Hastings himself would think you a proper 
 match for his daughter, and when she considered this, she -" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "She thought the difficulty of answering was at an end; for, 
 far from compromising either confidence or delicacy in revealing 
 a mere fact, which Mr. Hastings himself would be bound to reveal 
 were you to apply to him, as a friend to you both, it was our duty, 
 she said, to give you information upon which a measure so impor- 
 tant to you both was to be founded." 
 
 44 Perfectly well reasoned," said I, "and worthy the right- 
 minded woman who so decided." 
 
 " Observe, however," added Granville, " that we confine this 
 to the disclosure of the mere fact, that the engagement is at an end ; 
 a disclosure which Bertha's own interest would require, and her 
 father would wish, though their dignity might take no measures 
 
 « Gallimaufry is old English for a hotch-potch ; and I suppose, by this specimen of 
 Mrs. Margaret's, is used still by the lower orders in Yorkshire. 
 
 11. 16 
 
242 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 of themselves to reveal it. But farther than this, and especially as 
 to any thing concerning the state of her heart towards the prince, 
 or any one else, I beg you to believe me when I say, I know 
 nothing." 
 
 44 Not even the cause of the conclusion of the engagement?" 
 
 u Of that no more than the fact, that, in consequence of some 
 very painful explanations on the part of Prince Adolphus to Bertha 
 and her father, the agreement was cancelled by mutual consent." 
 
 " Mutual consent! Bertha's consent ! " exclaimed I, in perturba- 
 tion. 44 It appears, then, that the rupture was by the prince, and 
 that her heart was in the match, though his was not." 
 
 My agitation moved Granville, who with kindness said, 
 
 44 1 see your distress, and know all your feelings upon it. And 
 yet, though I am not in a situation to refute it, I am not prepared 
 to agree in your conclusion that her heart was in the match. But, 
 as I have told you, I am not sufficiently informed ; Honora alone 
 is in possession of the real facts of the case, detailed to her in letters 
 from Bertha herself; which letters she could not shew even to me ; 
 much less to you, without a breach of confidence. All that I myself 
 know is, that my cousin is now free both in hand and heart-, but 
 whether at all, or how far, that heart was ever affected by her 
 handsome kinsman, is known only to Honora, who, of course, 
 cannot disclose it." 
 
 44 Alas ! " said I, " without that disclosure, it is too clear what 
 she thinks of it 5 for I now recollect (indeed have never forgotten) 
 that in the letter she wrote to me at Calais, kind as it was, and 
 though the engagement must then have been cancelled, for the 
 prince had then returned to Germany, and she described the 
 warmest interest taken by Bertha in my fate, she was as solemn 
 and decisive as ever in warning me against a particle of hope on 
 that account. How could this be — the contract broken, and the 
 prince departed — if, spite of the rupture, he had not carried that 
 jewel, her heart, away with him?" 
 
 44 Do not be ingenious," said Granville, 44 in tormenting your- 
 self; for though I know not more of Bertha's feelings than I have 
 told you, certainly I can depose that it was not a conviction of her 
 attachment to her cousin that prompted Lady Hungerford's advice 
 to you. It arose purely and sheerly from the fear that the warm 
 description of Bertha's gratitude, which truth drew from her, 
 should not operate upon your too sanguine temper to bring you 
 into danger; danger, if Bertha, who never had (indeed from her 
 engagement never could have) indicated a return of your affection, 
 should not be favourable. I saw Lady Hungerford's letter, and 
 was even consulted upon it, and can assure you the reason I have 
 assigned was the only one that prompted that part of it which 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 243 
 
 terrifies you. Still I am in no condition to unveil the real heart of 
 Bertha in regard to her cousin, which, if even known to Honora, 
 is locked up in the letters I have mentioned, as if hermetically 
 sealed. 1 ' 
 
 I was bewildered with this sort of half-information, but with 
 which, such was my love, I was willing to be content until I 
 might gather fuller intelligence from these interesting letters; and 
 as I afterwards was favoured with them without any breach of 
 confidence, that my reader may not feel trifled with, but understand 
 the action of my story with more satisfaction, I think it better to 
 present them to him at once 5 — promising to explain, in its proper 
 place, how they came into my possession. 
 
 They consist of a series of epistles to her darling friend, and 
 almost mother, describing her situation with the prince on his 
 arrival at the Park, in the capacity of her betrothed, which had, it 
 seems, belonged to them both ever since the dying request of her 
 mother, the princess, and a consequent arrangement with the 
 duke, his father, had invested them, almost unknown to themselves, 
 with that character. 
 
 All but one of these letters had been written just about the time 
 of my last conversation with Lady Hungerford, which, as may be 
 remembered, so puzzled me, when she protested against being en- 
 tangled by words growing out of the difficulties of an embarrassing 
 situation J . The last, however, containing an interesting narrative 
 by the prince himself, was received after that conversation ; indeed 
 it was only delivered to Lady Hungerford on her return to the 
 Park, a day sooner than was expected. This I mention, because, 
 had she seen the narrative before the conversation alluded to, her 
 language to me had possibly been different. With these explana- 
 tions I set forth the letters in the following chapters. 
 
 ■ See Vol. II. 
 
244 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 LETTERS OF BERTHA TO LADY HUNGERFORD. 
 
 How like you the young German, 
 The duke of Saxony's nephew ? 
 
 Shakspeare.— Merchant of Venice. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 " Foljambe Park. 
 
 44 I write to you, as you desire me, without concealing a 
 thought. Was it necessary to desire me to do so, who never yet 
 concealed one from you ? And yet, if ever I could be templed to be 
 silent towards my best friend, it would be on an occasion where all 
 seems mystery and secret pressure, amounting to almost sadness. 
 
 " Far from that ardour and rush of pleasure you supposed, his 
 first address was formality itself. His really fine features, which you 
 know I allowed they were when you admired them in his picture, 
 seemed quite altered, and the sparkle of cheerful frankness which 
 you used to praise, and I tried to think of with more than a cousin's 
 regard, seemed changed into gloom, fearfulness, and suspicion. 
 
 " How different this from what I was told to expect, when at 
 sixteen years of age my father announced to me that, at the request 
 of my dying mother, he had betrothed me to my cousin Adolphus, 
 the son, as you know, of Prince Frederick of Saxony, who, my fa- 
 ther assured me, was devoted to the alliance. 
 -•"I will own, at the lime, this cost me bitter pangs, as I had no 
 idea of marriage where there had been no opportunity for mutual 
 knowledge. But my good father assuring me that his honour was 
 pledged, and that if, on acquaintance, I should object, it should not 
 be pursued, I agreed to keep myself disengaged, and, as you know, 
 strictly fulfilled thai agreement. 
 
 " How long has the acquaintance been deferred? Why, I know 
 not-, yet now that it has taken place, what have I to notice? The 
 most obsequious duty to my father, and the most correct politeness 
 to me : no more. These characterize every moment of our meetings; 
 yet there seems little soul in them 5 not that soul which I look for 
 and adore in those I am told I ought to love, and which I do so 
 adore in you, my dear adviser, sweet pattern, and darling friend. 
 Oh, how differently does his countenance and manner impress me 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 245 
 
 from yours! And when I reflect that he may be my husband- 
 awful, and sacred name! — all my fears of the disappointment and 
 misery which may attend the dedication of myself to the dying com- 
 mands of one parent, and the urgent wishes of the other, revive, 
 and I fear I am not more cheerful than himself. 
 
 44 And yet he is certainly handsome, and has the air distingue 
 which belongs to his rank and profession, and, could he banish the 
 sort of mournfulness which hangs about him, he probably might be 
 all we used to think him in his picture. Then his manner, however 
 cold, is to me most respectful ; surely I ought not to complain, be- 
 cause in a first interview there is some stiffness. A German, too! 
 
 44 He addressed me in French, which he speaks fluently, and 
 English, but not so well. My father tried to remember his German, 
 and for a moment there was a smile — not unbecoming ; but all soon 
 relapsed into solemnity, and almost sadness : and though, by de- 
 grees, he began to look at me ( for at first he seemed afraid of doing 
 so ), it did not enliven him, and what much struck me, several 
 sighs escaped him. 
 
 " What all this means, or what he thinks of me, I know not, and 
 what I think of him becomes a more serious question than ever. 
 But I am resigned, and firm in my resolution, if possible, to con- 
 form to my dearest father's engagement for me to my mother, made, 
 indeed, when I had no power of choice, and was unable even to be 
 consulted, but confirmed afterwards when I had that power, from 
 devotion to a father I adored, and who said his honour, dearer to 
 him than life, was pledged. Alas! — but retrospect is too late. 
 
 44 The character of the prince is amiable and estimable; and 
 though, under the circumstances, to feel, or profess love at once, 
 is impossible, yet love, as you have often consoled me by saying, 
 may come, and with it happiness. Certainly, in regard to person, 
 there is nothing in my illustrious cousin to forbid it, and then the 
 reflection of the duty I have shewn my father will only enhance it. 
 After all, I am only in the situation of many other females, whose 
 marriages have been made for them by their families, and who yet 
 ( some of them ) have been happier than many who have sacrificed 
 filial duty, and every thing else, to affection. 
 
 "And yet — but it is in vain to look back, though in doing so I 
 feel requited for what my firmness of purpose cost me, by the 
 thought of my dear father's content with me ; and very much am I 
 pleased that I had decision enough to remain here, the nun I ought 
 to be in my singular situation. Had I not resisted your temptations 
 to come to you in London, my task might have been more difficult; 
 besides, that I feel I am more than ever necessary to my beloved 
 parent, who, I grieve to say, is visibly worse. The will of Heaven 
 now, as ever, be done ; but it is evident to my fears, I cannot enjoy 
 
246 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 him long. What will then become of me among strangers, in a fo- 
 reign land? is a fearful question,— as, unless the prince gives up 
 the army, which he can hardly do, he cannot remain here. 
 
 u Upon the whole, as you may perceive, I am not happy, though 
 an expectant bride. Love me, however, chere' mamaw, — love me 
 as you always have done, and whatever happens, it will be a con- 
 solation to your devoted 
 
 " Bertha." 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 " We go on just in the same way we did. My prince cousin is 
 still, I may say, most reverential to me, as well as to my father i his 
 attentions unremitting, yet still cold \ as if to fulfil a duly of eti- 
 quette, rather than prompted by the heart. Perhaps this is Ger- 
 man, but I am sure it is not English. And yet there is something 
 in his eye, and, though stately and military, a sort of possibility 
 of softness in his manner, which wins my good will, and perhaps, 
 might win more, but for this strange constraint. 
 
 " To-day we walked alone in the wilderness, where poor 
 Mr. Clifford met his misfortune. The prince offered me his arm, 
 but with such formality that I was loth to take it. Yet I did, and 
 with frankness \ for I was resolved, if he persisted in his ceremo- 
 nious manner, he should not plead mine as an excuse. Did I do 
 wrong, dearest mamma ? or only comply, as I meant to do, with 
 your advice in this regard ? If I am to be united to him — and, though 
 only to gratify duty— if I have kept my heart for him, as I have 
 been told he has for me, he shall not say it is a cold or repulsive 
 heart. He shall at least have the refusal of it. 
 
 " Hence, I refused not his arm, and I thought I felt it press 
 mine; but, to my astonishment, he suddenly gave a deep sigh, 
 and I could not help saying, 
 
 " c Prince, I am afraid you are not well? ' 
 
 '* 4 Oh, yesV he answered, in imperfect English; J impossible 
 not, when you are so good — so full of amabilite ! ' 
 
 tc ' Amiableness, you should say,' observed I. 
 
 " 'Ha; you will teach me the English as I will you the Ger- 
 man,' said he. He then bowed, and tried to smile; but the smile 
 was too marked with melancholy to be like any smile I had ever 
 seen. Our walk then assumed a solemnity which never relapsed 
 on either side, for he seemed incapable of cheerfulness, and any 
 appearance of it in me became so much an effort, that I at last aban- 
 doned the attempt, and when we returned home, I sought my 
 room, and only found relief in tears, 
 
 " But this is not all. The post, which you know comes in be- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 247 
 
 fore we rise from dinner, brought him a letter with the foreign 
 post mark, and I observed, he coloured extremely on receiving it, 
 and, without opening it, put it hastily in his pocket. My father 
 asked if it was from Berlin, and begged him to open it without ce- 
 remony. No, he said, it was not of the least consequence; but I 
 discovered afterwards, with no small concern, that this could not 
 be, though the discovery was merely accidental. For Margaret, my 
 maid, going into a little cabinet allotted to him adjoining his cham- 
 ber up stairs, thinking him below, found him poring over a letter, 
 as she says, with tears in his eyes, and that he looked odd, by 
 which I found she meant displeased, as he hurried the letter into 
 his portfolio. 
 
 " You, as well as I, know how easily Margaret is excited, and I 
 never count much on her authority ; but here were at least some 
 particulars that shewed the packet could not be of no consequence. 
 
 " The whole evening afterwards, though endeavouring to force 
 conversation, what with his own unwillingness, my father's back- 
 wardness, and my wonder, the attempt was a failure \ nor can I omit 
 to observe that, though in his letter announcing his visit, he alluded, 
 however slightly, to his father's wishes about our engagement, he 
 has not as yet at any time mentioned it. Far indeed this from your 
 supposition, that he came to hurry its fulfilment. 
 
 " In fact, our whole time has hitherto passed with the same va- 
 cuity and dearth of interest that marked its commencement ; and if 
 really I had been permitted by our extraordinary circumstances to 
 have known and loved him, I should have fell both mortified and 
 affronted. That there is a mystery about him is clear ; how and 
 when it will be unveiled, I wish I could tell you. The wonder is, 
 that my father, always so jealous for me, does not perceive it; but 
 he is, alas ! very ill. 
 
 f* Adieu, dearest friend— I shall be glad of your opinion and ad- 
 vice, in this doubtful situation, in which the only certain thing is 
 that I am far from happy, though 
 
 u Your grateful and affectionate 
 
 " Bertha." 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 u I think this cannot go on much longer. I am sure it shall not, 
 if I can help it. The difficulty is to make my father see that his 
 daughter is not well treated. It is not that the least defect in eti- 
 quette can be detected. It is, indeed, too strictly fulfilled. If I 
 come down in the morning, and he and my father are at the break- 
 fast table before me, he starts up in an agitation of ceremony, to 
 
248 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 make his bow, as if I were the Queen of Prussia herself. If I pre- 
 pare to walk, he is all over the house for cloaks and bonnets. The 
 same in uncloaking on our return. But in the walk, not a word 
 passes but of the weather, or the growing of the flowers. If we ride, 
 which we often do alone, nobody so on the alert to put me on, or 
 take me off my horse ; but then no more till dinner. 
 
 " I wished him once to talk of Germany and his chdteau. All 
 the answer I could get was a sigh, or that his chdteau^m not 
 worth talking about. I asked him about the chace of the wild boar, 
 which his countrymen are so fond of, and of the large forests they 
 inhabit. It seemed to rive him ( I know not why ), to give me an 
 answer. I tried to discover his taste in female beauty and character 5 
 he got as far as Charlotte, in Goethe's tale of Werter, but there 
 stopt. 
 
 Ci To-day I asked him to teach me German, and he seemed 
 pleased ; but he never got beyond opening a book, and then fell 
 into a long reverie, interrupted only by occasional looks of great 
 earnestness at my face, and abortive attempts to address me-, so that 
 I began to question, whether his mind was right. 
 
 " Uneasy at this, I absolutely asked him whether he had any 
 thing on his mind? He said quickly, 4 0! yes; much, much; very 
 much; and you so good, so like the angels — you will hear—but 
 not now. 1 And then he started up, and striking his forehead with 
 his hand, left the room quickly. 
 
 " That there is something which deeply affects him, is very 
 clear ; that it relates in some measure to me, is probable, What an 
 enigma ! which none but himself can explain. I told you he had 
 never yet alluded to our situation. Yesterday he did so to my father, 
 but distantly and shortly. Talking of the difference in wealth of 
 the two nations, and the comparative poverty of the German nobles, 
 he said, his father had died poor, as most of the cadets of the no- 
 bility are, though high in title, and of sovereign houses. He was 
 ashamed, he added, of being a prince. How would it ever be in 
 his power to support a lady of England, accustomed to such af- 
 fluence, upon his mere pay? My father bade him put that quite out 
 of his mind; for that his pledge had been given, and ruin would be 
 preferred to a breach of it; but that of ruin there was no fear, though 
 our fortune might be impaired. The prince shrunk from the con- 
 versation, and said no more. 
 
 " Now, dearest mamma, advise me what I am to do. Is it pos- 
 sible that I can go on endeavouring to give my esteem, I was 
 going to say my love, to a man, however apparently amiable, who, 
 if his own master, shews such evident signs that he is not desirous 
 of it? We are not on the footing even of cousins. If I speak with 
 the familiarity of common friendliness, far more as if sensible of 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 249 
 
 the ties, between us, it seems to afflict— nay, fills him with misery. 
 
 c< A week has now passed in this ambiguous, and I should say 
 (to me) degrading situation,— but that evidently he himself is un- 
 der some secret grief, so oppressive as to do away all thought of 
 intentional ill-usage. 
 
 4 4 One thing is evident, that whatever his respect, I have no share 
 of his heart. How lucky, Oh ! how lucky that he has no part of 
 mine ! Yet I have struggled, in the necessity I saw of enabling my 
 dear father to redeem his pledge for honour's sake, to give him all 
 the affection of an intended wife. How much did this cost me, and 
 yet, you see, had I succeeded better than I did, it might have ruined 
 my happiness, for it is clear he would be the first to release his uncle 
 from his pledge if it were asked. 
 
 44 All this determines me to lose no time in bringing the affair to 
 a termination. To-morrow I will attempt it. Alas ! if only honour 
 on his part forces on this marriage without affection, what will be- 
 come of your friend and protegee, 
 
 44 Bertha." 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 " The explanation is over. I am astounded — stupified — over- 
 come — yet not lost ; and, upon the whole, not displeased. Poor 
 Adolphus ! he has suffered torture, for I really believe he is full of 
 rectitude and honour, which have had a sad trial. My pride also 
 is saved, had I had any, for he would have loved me had it been 
 morally possible, which it was not — no fault of his or mine. 
 
 " I am scarcely collected enough to give the details, but will try 
 to do so. 
 
 44 Resolving then to bring on this explanation, I proposed walk- 
 ing with him in the flower garden ;and, passing the summer-house, 
 he paused, as he always does, at the sight of his mother's arms on 
 the side of my father's. The effect was to increase his melancholy, 
 as we entered the summer-house — that summer-house which I 
 myself for a long time never entered, and do not yet enter, without 
 painful recollections -for never can I forget a parting, which 
 grieved my very heart, from the desolation which it caused before 
 my eyes to another, who deserved better than to love a person who 
 could not return his love But of this no more. 
 
 44 1 knew not why, but Adolphus trembled violently as we took 
 seats on two garden-chairs, and I soon found that he was as anxious 
 as myself to bring our most uncomfortable stale to a conclusion. 
 
 44 Far from avoiding the questions I had resolved to ask, he 
 seemed himself desirous to seek (he subject, though evidently un- 
 
250 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 der extreme difficulty how to introduce it. He began in English, 
 but went on in French. 
 
 " 4 Hah ! ' said he, 4 the occasion I wished is come. Will my 
 dear cousin amiably let me talk to her with my open heart?" 
 
 " I assured him there was nothing I wished more, especially as 
 he had told me he had much to say. 
 
 44 4 1 know you have the heaven's goodness,' said he, 4 and will 
 feel for my misery 5 but I must, on that very account, be more 
 true to you.' He then went on in French : 4 You must, I fear, 
 have thought me cold and ungrateful, if only not to be happy under 
 such a welcome as I have received from my uncle and you, and 
 the prospect of such a treasure as my lovely cousin. God knows I 
 am neither one nor the other ; not cold, and not ungrateful } and, 
 Oh ! if I had but seen you before— if I had but known your worth, 
 your beauty, and your goodness — my God, what might I not have 
 been spared! and she, too, poor, unhappy, and yet virtuous and 
 innocent as she is.' 
 
 44 4 What is your meaning, prince? ' asked I, quickly, for I was 
 startled. 4 Of whom do you speak? How can I understand you?' 
 Indeed I was astonished and excited by this speech. 
 
 4 4 4 Ah! true,' said he 5 4 1 have been surprised by my admira- 
 iion of you, my cousin, into a too hasty disclosure of my sad his- 
 tory. But listen to me, my amiable cousin, and promise not to be 
 offended at my sincerity, and I will endeavour to set my embar- 
 rassment before you.' 
 
 4 4 4 Sincerity,' I answered, 4 can never offend me 5 ' and I felt my 
 curiosity more and more raised. 
 
 4 4 4 Well, then,' said he, 4 the engagement made for us by our 
 parents, without our knowledge or consent — made, indeed, when 
 
 we were children — will you forgive me, dear Miss Hastings, 
 
 if V 
 
 4 4 4 If what?' asked I, for he hesitated. 4 Speak boldly all you 
 feel ; for I am prepared to hear/ 
 
 4 4 4 If, then,' continued he, 4 when it was communicated to me 
 (which it was not, till I was sixteen, and got my first commission 
 in the army ), I thought it cruel and unjust to us both, and as such, 
 was sorry for it. But recollect, dearest cousin, I had then never seen 
 you.' 
 
 44 Seeing he was embarrassed by a kindly fear of offending me, 
 I told him all excuse was unnecessary, for I myself could not approve 
 of such engagements. 
 
 4 4 4 Hah!' said he (and a gleam of satisfaction shot from his 
 really fine eyes), 4 do you think of them as I do? Do you wish our's 
 undone? ' 
 
 '"lam devoted to my father's will, 5 I replied. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 251 
 
 44 His countenance instantly fell, as he exclaimed, 4 1 feared so.' 
 44 4 Feared so! ' 
 
 " 4 Ah! I see,' 1 cried he, 4 1 have again offended you; believe 
 me, to do so will make me the most miserable of men.' 
 
 44 4 Be assured, prince,' said I, 4 no apology is necessary to me, 
 nor to my father either, who entered into this engagement with 
 Prince Frederick, your father, as you say, unjustly towards us, 
 and only at the dying request of my mother, to whom he could 
 refuse nothing, and whose last moments he soothed by it. Nor am 
 I surprised that you wish it broken.' 
 
 4 4 4 O! do not say so,' answered he; 4 do not think, after having 
 known you, I could ever have such a wish, or ever not rejoice at 
 my aunt's dying request, and the consent of both our fathers — 
 if V 
 
 44 Here his feelings overcame him, till he relieved my anxiety 
 by concluding, in faltering accents, 4 if I had not found that my 
 heart was not my own to give you.' 
 
 44 1 was breathless while this was going on $ but the sentence 
 finished, I felt a relief I cannot describe. The secret is now out, 
 thought 1 5 we are both free — no fault either of mine or my father's 
 —honour not broken, yet happiness not disturbed. 
 
 44 All this flashed across me at the instant, and I believe my 
 countenance shewed it, for he remarked the change, and exclaimed, 
 4 O, heavens! am I so happy as to have confessed my breach of duty 
 and honour, and yet not be punished by your indignation ? O ! 
 beautiful and dear cousin, say in words as well as in looks that you 
 do not despise and hate me, and will not drive me from your pre- 
 sence — say this, and 1 may still be happy.' 
 
 44 ; Believe me, prince,' said I, 4 in this respect I am all you can 
 wish. As we neither of us knew the other, you cannot wonder that 
 when you came to us, I felt prepared to fulfil this engagement 
 more out of duty to a parent who loves me belter than himself, 
 than from affection for a person, however esteemed, whom I had 
 never seen. And as you cannot be offended at this, so neither can 
 I, that you are in the same situation 5 and this I should say, if 
 even your heart was not, as you tell me, occupied elsewhere. But 
 you must now go on,' continued I (for I felt gaily), 4 and inform 
 me who it is that has made you her conquest — who that is to be 
 my new cousin— whom I dare say I shall love. Some distinguished 
 person of the Prussian nobility, no doubt; some happy lady of the 
 court.' 
 
 44 At this, his countenance again fell, and his old gloom came 
 over him, and, with a melancholy shake of the head, a deep sigh 
 escaped him when he said, 4 No. And yet,' added he, 4 why should 
 I be ashamed of virtue, delicacy, and lovely beauty, all united with 
 
252 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 natural elegance, which equals, or rather exceeds, in interest, all 
 that I ever saw in any court? ' 
 
 " 4 Why, indeed? 1 said I. 4 But after thus raising my own inte- 
 rest about this unknown lady, will you not gratify it? will you not 
 tell me who she is, and the history of your attachment? Indeed I 
 think I have some right to know ' 
 
 "'Indeed, my amiable cousin, I think you have, and shall,' 
 returned he; c but at this moment I am too agitated, loo suddenly 
 raised from misery to happiness, to possess my faculties clear 
 enough to give you proper possession of the facts. But I have al- 
 ready begun, and, with midnight labour, have almost finished a 
 candid relation of them all — all which drew me into this position 5 
 thinking that the time might come, as it has, when it might be ne- 
 cessary, if not for my vindication, at least to explain a conduct which 
 must have appeared so mysterious. One hour more applied to it, 
 and it shall be laid before you, and God send that you may think 
 me excusable.' 
 
 "As you may suppose, I readily assented to this; he sought 
 and kissed my hand, which I could not well refuse, and we both 
 left the summer-house with lighter hearts than we entered it. 
 
 " At dinner we were both better company, which made my father 
 feel so too, for he acknowledged that Adolphus's determined melan- 
 choly had both puzzled and hurt him. 
 
 66 In the evening we walked again, and he then put a packet 
 into my hands, which he called his narrative. He wished, he said, 
 that he could have wrilten it in English, or that I could have read 
 it in German-, as it was he had put it down in French, such as 
 it was. 
 
 " On receiving it, I became so impatient for its contents, that I 
 shortened my walk, and begged to return with it to the house, 
 which he did not oppose. And as I returned, I could not help 
 thinking, as God generally tempers evil with good, that if my poor 
 Foljambe's life was to be shortened, there was at least this attendant 
 good upon that evil, that a quarrel, perhaps fatal to both him and 
 Adolphus, had been avoided. For, with my brother's vehemence 
 and proud spirit, he would never have allowed what he would 
 have called this affront, on the part of the prince, to pass unre- 
 venged. The concealment of the engagement too from him, in 
 consequence of this unfortunate violence of his passions, was a proof 
 of my dear father's quiet sagacity. I hasten, however, to the con- 
 tents of the packet." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 -253 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE PRINCE'S NARRATIVE. 
 
 Florizel. I bless the time 
 When my good falcon made her flight across 
 Thy father's ground. 
 
 Or I'll be thine, my fair, 
 Or not my father's ; for I cannot be 
 Mine own ; nor any thing to any, if 
 I be not thine. To this I am most constant, 
 Though destiny say no. 
 
 Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever 
 Ran on the greensward ; nothing she does, or seems, 
 But smacks of something greater than herself; 
 Too noble for this place. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Winter's Tale. 
 
 No trifling events are announced in the mottoes I have chosen 
 for this chapter, and well do they develop what I have to relate. I 
 therefore proceed, without comment, to record, though I abridge, 
 the narrative which the prince, according to his intimation, laid 
 before the astonished Bertha. 
 
 "When my father, Prince Frederick," said Adolphus in his 
 narrative, " announced to me this engagement, made when we 
 were children, and unknown to each other, I had but just got my 
 commission in my father's regiment, and it was a question whe- 
 ther he should not send me to England to make acquaintance with, 
 and cultivate the charming person to whom I was thus betrothed. 
 Had he done so, much affliction would have been spared ; for who 
 that had seen her could fail to love her? But, upon deliberation, 
 the relations between Prussia and Austria being disturbed, I was 
 not allowed to depart from my post, and afterwards, I conceived 
 such a dread of having my affections thus fettered, that I sought, 
 by every means in my power, to postpone a visit to which I had 
 taken an inconceivable dislike. Even my curiosity could not excite 
 me to it i and, as it was settled that the contract should not be 
 fulfilled till I was three-and-twenty, I the more easily found reasons 
 to persuade my father not to hurry the visit. Sometimes it was the 
 military, sometimes the court service 5 for I was a cambellan to the 
 king. But the most persuasive inducement was my wish to study 
 at the university of Weimar, where I accordingly passed three 
 years — with the intervals which it was necessary to pass with my 
 regiment at the reviews, and now and then an attendance at court. 
 
254 DE CLIFFORD 
 
 For the first of these years study was very sweet to me, for I en- 
 joyed the instruction and friendship of Goethe 5 and though I per- 
 haps was not quite pleased with having been betrothed from infancy 
 from family views, where my heart had never been consulted, yet 
 the universal and uniform account I had received of the accomplish- 
 ments, virtues, and beauty of my noble cousin, while it flattered 
 my hopes, left my mind and heart perfectly free to engage in 
 literature, or other pursuits and exercises, suitable to my age and 
 profession. 
 
 "Among others, I felt a passion common to all Germans, 
 especially princes, for hunting the wild boar ; and to enjoy this, 
 I not only profited by every thing like vacation from study, but 
 frequently played truant from my tutor, who excused it, partly 
 from good-nature, partly from thinking the diversion so noble. 
 
 " Most of these excursions were unknown to my father. In one 
 of them an adventure befel me, the consequences of which ma- 
 terially affected all my pursuits and views in life. I will relate it in 
 all simplicity and truth, without attempting to varnish any part of 
 it by a partial representation, or to conceal my own weakness, in 
 what I felt and what I have done. 
 
 "At the end of a long day's chace of the boar, I was returning 
 to the town of Eisenach, where for a few days I had established my 
 quarters ; the garde des forets had left me with the dogs, and I 
 was alone, when a fresh boar suddenly broke from a covert, and 
 made at first as if it would attack me ; but, my horse plunging 
 much, it turned and took to flight. 
 
 44 My ardour was such, that, totally mindless that my companions 
 had left me, I pursued it, though with difficulty, for the forest was 
 almost trackless. Its gloom, too, adding to the darkness of an au- 
 tumnal evening, left me not merely incapable of farther sport, but 
 perplexed me how to find my way out of it. In fact, I believe I 
 wandered in circles, so that I was completely overtaken by night, 
 without seeming to have advanced a yard towards any beaten 
 road that might lead to the habitation of man. I found afterwards 
 that every step I had taken had carried me round and round the 
 town of Eisenach. 
 
 " In this difficulty, and with the pleasant prospect of passing the 
 night with no bed but the cold ground, I was relieved by hearing 
 the bark of a dog, and soon after seeing a light, which shot ap- 
 parently from the window of a cottage, I of course approached it, 
 and after some parley with a man, who seemed the owner, and 
 questioned me much as to my business, and how I came there, I 
 was admitted, 
 
 " I did not say who I was ; but my regimentals shewing I was 
 an officer of Prussia, I was received as such, and made welcome as 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 255 
 
 long as I chose to slay. This, however, was difficult to settle ; for 
 I was not only several miles from my place of rest, but it was totally 
 impossible to find the way without a guide ; and as the host was the 
 only man on the spot, he could not, he said, well leave his family, 
 consisting of three females— Eisenach, too, being a fortified town, 
 the gates would be shut. It was therefore settled that I should re- 
 main all night, with such accommodation as they could give me. 
 
 " My host, who was a der fdrster, or sous-garde desforets, 
 undertook also to take care of my horse, for which he was, in truth, 
 much belter provided than for myself, the stables, to which his cot- 
 tage was merely an appendage, having been erected for the use of 
 the Duke of Weimar, when he came to hunt in the forest. 
 
 " As to my bed, by a piece of good luck, as my host said, there 
 was not much difficulty for that night; for a lady and her daughter, 
 who had lodged with them for some time, and had the only good 
 rooms in the house, were absent thai day at Eisenach, and would 
 not return till the morrow, so that I might have their bed, which, 
 being the fraus own, said the der fbrster, was an exceeding 
 good one. 
 
 " The arrangement was soon made, and after a supper, homely 
 enough, I was conducted up stairs into a room, large for the 
 house, and so furnished that I might have thought myself at Wei- 
 mar or Berlin. At first I hesitated to make use of it; but both host 
 and hostess assured me that the lady, who was the most kindly 
 person alive, except her daughter, who was equal to her in oblig- 
 ingness, would be quite pleased to think they had accommodated a 
 benighted Ritter. I therefore consented, and prepared for repose. 
 
 "But, first, I could not help surveying the chamber, which 
 would have been elegant any where, but, in this place, was surpris- 
 ingly so. Two beds, furnished with the finest linen, and curtains of 
 chintz ; a small Persian carpet, japan chairs, and a bookcase of the 
 same, filled with choice works of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Gesner, 
 and Klopstock. I was quite amazed ; could not at first sleep for 
 thinking who these lodgers could be; and when 1 did, had a ro- 
 mantic dream, such as a gentleman of twenty, benighted in a forest, 
 might be supposed to indulge. 
 
 " In the morning I made haste up, in order that the room I had 
 made so free with might be restored to the neatness in which I 
 found it, and that the owners might not be shocked at finding it had 
 been so disturbed. I would have decamped, too, early, but was 
 seized with curiosity to know who these superior people were — 
 superior, as inmates of such a house. I could, however, get little 
 about them from the der forster, except that they had lodged with 
 him six months; had fitted up their bed-room, and another for 
 music, and to sit in, at their own expense; passed most of their 
 
256 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 lime, when out of doors, in the forest ; and, when in, with their 
 books and music. I asked if he knew not who they were? He said, 
 no, except that their name was Beckman, and they came from 
 Leipsic 5 that he had first called them Von Beckman, but they for- 
 bade him, saying they had no right to it. I asked if they had no 
 acquaintance? None, but the pastor, he said, and the poor whom he 
 recommended ; for they were very charitable, and religious loo. 
 
 I asked if they were good-looking, particularly the young lady, 
 but immediately checked myself, for I thought of England. He, 
 however, would not let this pass, but laughed, and said I had better 
 wait and judge for myself; but that, to his mind, an angel could 
 not be more beautiful than the fraulein. 
 
 "At that instant I was enabled to make the judgment he sug- 
 gested, for the noise of wheels announced Iheir return in a caleche, 
 from which they alighted, the younger lady with such grace and 
 airiness, as bespoke the nymph-like being she was. I, however, 
 could not see her face, for she was busied with assisting her mother, 
 lo whom she seemed to shew the most affectionate attention. When 
 she turned, however, and came in, I thought my host's account 
 was true, for never had my young experience seen her equal, whe- 
 ther in the salons of Dresden or Berlin. I had, within a few days, 
 been enchanting myself with the perusal of Charlotte and Werter ; 
 (he image of Charlotle, spite of England, was deep in my heart, 
 and that image seemed here realized. Heaven defend me, thought 
 I, from the fate of Werter. 
 
 u It may be supposed that the ladies were surprised at seeing a 
 young hussar in such a place, though, as the garrison of Eisenach 
 was not very far off, they accounted for it; but when, as I thought 
 it right by myself, I revealed who I was, and the history of my 
 coming all the way from Weimar, and being benighted in the 
 Schwienforst, in pursuit of a boar, was told them, partly by the 
 landlord, partly by myself, their wonder revived, and the elder lady 
 asked, rather anxiously as I thought, though with perfect good 
 breeding, where and how I could have been accommodated ; then, 
 seeing that honest Hermann, the landlord, began to be a little con- 
 fused, while preparing to explain, she anticipated him, and with a 
 politeness, amounting to benevolence, which I never forgot, ' I 
 see,' she said, ' that what I hoped is true, and that you have at least 
 had a little better accommodation than the other chambers of this 
 poor place could afford. My absence I shall look upon as fortunate, 
 if it has saved your lordship from such an inconvenience.' 
 
 " While I lost not a word of this well-bred address of the elder 
 lady, I could not move my eyes from the countenance of the youn- 
 ger. Ingenuousness and freshness were its chief characteristics ; 
 for never did I see one so dazzling with youth and health, yet so 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 257 
 
 corrected by a downcast modesty. To describe it, is impossible — to 
 escape it, was hopeless. Her eye spoke ten thousand languages, yet 
 I never could find out its colour, so varied was its expression, yet 
 so soft the feelings it seemed to convey. It lightened— it languished 
 — it commanded— it entreated — and when it did the last, what 
 heart could withstand it ? Mine could not 5 did not ; for in less than 
 ten minutes I was her captive, never again to be free. 
 
 44 We adjourned to the sitting-room above stairs, of which Ma- 
 dame Beckman did the honours with the same ease and self-pos- 
 session as I had remarked below 5 while the young Mathilde, from 
 the mere display of her sweet manners and unaffected nature, com- 
 pleted the conquest which her outward charms had begun. Pardon 
 me, dear cousin, if never having seen you — wholly ignorant of the 
 attractions I now witness, which, if known, would have rendered 
 me insensible to all I have been relating; and, moreover, not in 
 good humour with an engagement, made for me without my con- 
 sent — pardon me, I say, if I forgot England — forgot you — forgot 
 my father, and thought of nothing but the beaming houri that stood 
 before me. As you have told me to relate to you honestly, and with- 
 out reserve, all my feelings, you see how I obey you. 
 
 " But if this was my situation at first sight of the little fairy Ma- 
 thilde, then only sixteen (myself but twenty), what was it after- 
 wards, when not only her personal charms, but her very sweet cha- 
 racter, of which yours so much and so continually reminds me, 
 were unfolded in a manner to enhance them a hundred-fold ? Can 
 you be surprised if I felt, what I thought this terrible engagement, 
 more and more irksome, and that I resolved to adopt all possible 
 means to avoid one who was unknown, for the sake of her who 
 was known. There was in this, dear cousin, no treason to you, 
 and, from what I shall relate, nothing but loyalty to Mathilde. 
 
 u Not to detain you too long, the impression made both by Ma- 
 thilde and her mother was deep and lasting. Obliged to return to 
 Eisenach, if only for clothes, I was uneasy till I again found myself 
 at Hermann's cottage, which I did the next day, and met a recep- 
 tion that won me still more. An uncommon politeness in the mo- 
 ther, and a visible joy in the daughter, played havoc with my 
 imagination. A third visit, of the same character, only made the 
 impression more absorbing, and all notion of hunting wild boars, 
 or studying at Weimar, or joining my regiment, or wailing at 
 court, was forgotten. 
 
 " The intimacy, thus commenced, proceeded, and I so far learned 
 the history of Madame Beckman's retirement, as to find that it was 
 to avoid some very improper advances of a very great person, a 
 prince of a royal house, who persecuted the young and beautiful 
 Mathilde with addresses, which neither were, nor, from his rank, 
 11. 17 
 
258 BE CLIFFORD j 
 
 could be, honourable. The widow of one of the professors of Leipsie 
 — still residing there — Madame Beckman could not, while in the 
 place, escape the persecution, and she retreated to this forest, to re- 
 main incognitOy till the prince should have finished his studies, 
 and removed from the university. 
 
 "Madame Beckman was every way an excellent person, and 
 after she became familiarized with my rank, treated me almost like 
 a son, as Mathilde did like a brother, though she never would call 
 me so, but odiously persisted in the ceremonial of Monseigneur 
 and Altesse. 
 
 u In consequence of this, Madame Beckman gave me serious 
 counsel upon my truant conduct. She told me truly that it would 
 ruin me with my father and my sovereign, not to mention that my 
 obvious partiality to Mathilde would ruin herself ; and entreated, 
 even with tears, that I would return to Berlin. 
 
 " At these moments Mathilde would shed tears too, and if she 
 spoke, it was to second her mother ; but something secretly whis- 
 pered me that her heart was, on these occasions, at variance with 
 her tongue. I was, however, obliged to obey my father and my 
 king, and, for a time at least, tear myself away, with a resolution, 
 not concealed, that I would take the earliest possible opportunity to 
 return. 
 
 44 Frequently I examined myself on the subject of rny engage- 
 ment; but my heart being now positively given to another, my 
 original aversion to it was heightened in a tenfold degree, and I was 
 more than ever ingenious in fabricating excuses against the visit to 
 England. 
 
 " This did not escape my father, who before had had his suspi- 
 cions of the fact, but was now put out of all doubt by an occur- 
 rence, honourable to Mrs. Beckman, but sinister, I thought, to me. 
 One morning, having sent for me to his chamber, where he was 
 ill, I found him with an open letter in his hand, which he imme- 
 diately put into mine, and told me to read it. It was from Madame 
 Beckman, and, as I never forgot a word of it, I will record it here. 
 
 " 4 The Sub-keeper Hermann's cottage, 
 in the Schweinforst, Eisenach. 
 
 44 ''My Lord, — It is with regret and unwillingness that I in- 
 trude myself upon your highness; but duty to myself, as well as to 
 your illustrious family, and, above all, to the prince, your noble 
 son, compels me to apprise you of the delicate and dangerous posi- 
 tion in which his warm heart, and most generous temper, have in- 
 volved him. By a mere accident in hunting, he discovered the 
 retired place where myself and my daughter were lodging 5 he re- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 259 
 
 peated his visits lill I was fearful of the consequences 5 for I cannot 
 conceal from your highness, that his partiality to my daughter was 
 not disguised, and would I could say that his attentions had been 
 without effect upon her young heart. Knowing the insurmountable 
 distance between our humble family and your highness's illustrious 
 house, I trembled for the consequences *, for the prince's honour- 
 able nature left me no doubt of his intentions, and I often, with 
 tears, entreated him to leave us in our obscurity. But he would not 
 listen, and when recalled by your parental mandate from Weimar, 
 where he was supposed to be, he intimated his determined resolu- 
 tion to visit us again. 
 
 4 4 4 1 have but one lirie of duty to pursue, which is to inform 
 your highness of this situation of your son, in order that your high- 
 ness may take such precautions as your rank may demand, for its 
 preservation from the danger to which a misplaced affection may 
 expose it. 
 
 44 4 I am, with due respect, f 
 44 4 Your highness's servant, 
 
 444 GUNDRED BECKMAN. 
 
 64 'Widow of Professor Willelm Beckman, of the University of 
 Leipsic' 
 
 44 My agitation, while reading this letter, may be conceived, 
 especially as my father fixed his eyes upon me during the whole 
 time. His temper was remarkably cool, but honourable and deter- 
 mined, and it appeared in the tone and manner in which he said, 
 4 Well, Sir, what do you think of it ? ' To which I replied, 4 As the 
 letter of a noble-minded woman, who has written truth in every 
 word of it.' 
 
 4 4 4 So far you are yourself true to her,' said my father. 4 How 
 far you are so to your relations in England, who have preserved 
 [heir honour towards us, or how far to your ancestors, from whom 
 our descent is among the few now in existence, which are spotless 
 on all sides, I leave you to judge. I suppose from this letter you 
 have already contemplated a mesalliance' 
 
 4 4 4 Father,' I replied, 4 1 never have deceived you, and never 
 will.' 
 
 4 4 4 Wait then, at least,' answered he, 4 till this tottering frame of 
 mine has sunk. Let me not witness the disgrace. Promise me never 
 to visit these ladies again while I live. Ladies they evidently are, 
 although the customs of the world deny them that title.' 
 
 4 4 4 1 promise you, my dear father,' replied I, in agitation. 4 On 
 the other hand, though I presume not to make a condition, and 
 therefore do not demand a promise, let me hope that you will not; 
 
%0 »E CLIFFORD \ 
 
 insist upon this English visit, at least till my time has expired, and 
 I am three-and-twenty.' 
 
 " 'Depending upon your own good faith, I will not,' said my 
 father. c Leave me, for I am not well.' 
 
 " Nor was he, for though not apparently in danger he had the 
 seeds of a mortal disease beginning to shew themselves in him ; 
 and from the chamber which he had sought, as he thought, for a few 
 days' relief, he never afterwards stirred. Yet he did not immediately 
 die, and before his death I had the satisfaction of reading his 
 answer to the letter of Mathilde's mother, in which he bore 
 the highest testimony of respect and gratitude to that honourable 
 woman. 
 
 " There was now a prodigious alteration in my views. I was no 
 longer under any control but my own, and I thought I had a 
 right to dispose of my heart as I pleased. It was a right given by 
 nature to man, which nobody could take from him. But I behaved 
 like a coward. Instead of coming to fair and open explanations 
 with you and my uncle on the subject, I was sullen and silent, and, 
 in fact, shrank from you with fear. Yet I resolved ultimately to 
 go over to England, to throw myself at your feet, and confessing 
 my predilection for another, to leave it to you to exact the per- 
 formance of our engagement or not. Had I done this immediately, 
 or done no more, perhaps I might not have been so much to blame ; 
 but meantime, and before this was done, I pursued Mathilde. 
 
 "As soon as my affairs, and the sincere grief I felt for my 
 excellent parent, permitted, I flew to Hermann's cottage-, but the 
 birds were flown. 
 
 "The removal from the University of the royal personage whose 
 designs had forced them into exile had left them free, and they had 
 returned to Leipsic. Hither I followed them, and had the delight 
 of finding myself rapidly advancing in Mathilde's affection-, when 
 I awakened as from a dream, in which I had too sadly lost myself, 
 by the reflection of my total want of power, consistently with honour, 
 to continue the career I was pursuing. 
 
 "The thought, as if it had never occurred before, came like a 
 thunder-clap upon me 5 1 felt agonized, maddened, and despairing 
 of pardon, either from you or the Beckmans. But I at last resolved 
 to excecute the design I had conceived, of going to England and 
 throwing myself on your mercy. It was impossible, I felt, that your 
 heart could be in the least interested. It was a mere family arrange- 
 ment, out of which, if you thought as I did, I trusted my retreat 
 would not be difficult. In truth, I feared by uncle more than you. 
 With this resolution I fled from Leipsic, and came to Foljambe 
 Park. You know the rest." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 261 
 
 So closed the narrative, which produced a complete settlement 
 of the question as to the engagement in the mind of Bertha, reliev- 
 ing her, as she said to Lady Hungerford, from all anxiety, and 
 restoring her to herself. 
 
 Uncertainty, however, and uneasiness too, remained in regard 
 to Mr. Hastings, who was too ill to be agitated by such an impor- 
 tant alteration in his views, and whose feelings might have been 
 sensibly hurt by it r even if well. 
 
 It was to aid her friend in her embarrassment that Lady Hunger- 
 ford flew to her, on the receipt of her last latter ; but the increasing 
 illness of Mr. Hastings prevented for some time all communication 
 of the affair. The great and unexpected improvement in his health 
 had, however, at length permitted it, nor did it produce any shock. 
 The assurance which Bertha gave him, and which her whole 
 demeanour confirmed, that the change was rather satisfactory to 
 her than otherwise-, and the evidence which the letters and narra- 
 tive I have just transcribed gave, that had the engagement pro- 
 ceeded, it would have ended in the misery of both ; all this had its 
 due weight with his right-judging mind. He was indeed himself 
 relieved from no small anxiety for his darling child, occasioned by 
 a delay for which he could not account; and as his honour was 
 totally uncompromised, and he appeared even in the character of 
 a generous friend to his nephew, in releasing him from his fetters, 
 the effect upon his peace, and therefore his health, was really 
 beneficial. 
 
 It remains to add, by way of completing the history of what may 
 be called this romance, that my conjecture was right as to the 
 ignorance of the engagement on the part of Foljambe. This, accord- 
 ing to Granville, who told it me, arose from the fear of the over- 
 bearing pride and violence of his temper, aiming, even at that 
 young age, at nothing less than the control of his whole family ; 
 but particularly from the fear of the affected contempt which he 
 always expressed for the German alliance, and the virulent opposi- 
 tion he would certainly have made to drawing it closer. His father, 
 therefore, imposed silence on Bertha, and kept it himself, during 
 Foljambe's life; and Granville and Lady Hungerford were the only 
 confidants of the secret, after the death of Foljambe hence their 
 late extraordinary mystery with me, and hence Foljambe's zealous 
 recommendation, when alive, of the proposals of the two other 
 suitors. 
 
 Having thus, I trust, enlightened my readers on what they 
 might think the perplexing story of the prince, I now proceed with 
 my own. 
 
262 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 ANOTHER RIVAL APPEARS ON THE SCENE, WHICH MIGHT OCCASION ALARM, BUT SINKS 
 BEFORE MY CONFIDENCE IN BERTH A'S CHARACTER. 
 
 The four winds blow in from every coast 
 Renowned suitors. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Merchant of Venice, 
 
 Had I myself been allowed to peruse the letters and narrative 
 which I have just set before my reader, almost as much in pity to 
 him as for my own convenience in relating my story, it may be 
 supposed that I should have proceeded in my interesting under- 
 taking with far different hopes, and in far different spirits, than 
 those which actually possessed me. It is certain, that although, as 
 I have stated, I was so devoted to the feeling that absorbed me, and 
 of so sanguine a temperament, that I was contented to pursue my 
 design, yet I wished for something far more real, and better set off 
 as to particulars, than the mere naked assurance, though upon 
 such good authority as the friends who gave it, that Bertha's heart 
 as well as hand was free. 
 
 At any rale, did I gain any thing by this in regard to myself? 
 Was there the smallest encouragement held out to me that, because 
 the prince (from whatever cause) had failed, I should succeed? 
 How much might also depend upon the cause of that failure, which 
 the reader will recollect I did not at this time know, and was 
 therefore left to pursue my way, in almost as uncomfortable a stale 
 of ignorance of the details, as I had so long been struggling with as 
 to the fact itself. 
 
 Upon the whole, therefore, my conferences with Granville, 
 though they so far encouraged hope as to relieve me from fear of 
 the prince, it was a hope by no means amounting to confidence \ 
 and in the midst of the satisfaction of being delivered from the 
 terror of one rival, my peace was somewhat disturbed by the threat- 
 ening announcement of another. 
 
 Granville was as usual the channel of the intelligence, and from 
 the lime he took for it, which was just half-an-hour before dinner, 
 I accused him of the ill nature of an intention to spoil that necessary 
 meal. Having finished his own toilet, he came to me while at 
 mine, and my valet having retired, he asked me at once, and, as I 
 thought, rather abruptly, whether the intelligence he had given me 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 263 
 
 as to Bertha s freedom, had produced any, and what determination 
 as to my own conduct? 
 
 44 You seem in a hurry," said I $ "yet, upon my faith, the scanty 
 materials you have given me, by which to shape my resolution, do 
 not appear to require any particular haste," 
 
 44 More, perhaps, " returned he, 44 than you are aware of, for 
 young Mansell comes here to-night." 
 
 "And what then?" 
 
 44 Why, then, he means to enter the lists with you, as a suitor 
 to his cousin 5 and who knows but he may succeed? " 
 
 44 I do," replied I, with great firmness. 44 You might as well 
 suppose that if he had offered to Lady Hungerford, before your 
 worship appeared, her ladyship would have married him." 
 
 44 And yet Yenus married Vulcan 5 — and a fresh-coloured York- 
 shire squire, with good blood in his veins — — " 
 
 44 Well? " 
 
 44 Though a bit of a blockhead, and not able to dance as you 
 do—" 
 44 Well?" 
 
 44 Yet with eight thousand a-year~- — " 
 44 Well?" 
 
 44 May be thought as good for a husband, as the blacksmith was 
 by the Goddess of Beauty. Such qualifications have won many a 
 sentimental lady, fond of dancing too (though he is such a clown 
 at it), before now. I assure you I am horribly afraid." 
 
 "So am not I." 
 
 44 Well, but Honora is. Will not that shake you?" 
 t "No." 
 
 44 What has made you so confident?" 
 
 44 Heaven knows, as for my own success. I am not so— but if 
 success were to depend upon comparison, I dare enter the lists 
 with him. I cannot give Bertha eight thousand a-year, but I can 
 give what he never can, a heart and a mind fully able to under- 
 stand and appreciate her perfections \ and much I mistake if she 
 would not value this more than a dozen coaches and six. Whom 
 she may love I know not, but of this I am sure, that — 
 
 4 Her love, more noble than the world, 
 Prizes not quantity of dirty lands.' " 
 
 44 Molto bravo!" cried Granville } 44 but at least prepare for 
 the trial, for, as X told you, Mansell comes here to-nighf." 
 
 Granville then told me a most amusing trait of this distinguished 
 young gentleman, which, however, deserved not so much laughter 
 as he bestowed upon it, for it shewed a modesty for which we had 
 
264 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 not given him credit. It seems he had always, and for years, felt- 
 to use his own expression — a sneaking kindness for his cousin. 
 The prince's visit had frightened him 5 but that over, he resolved 
 to lose no more time, lest, to use the same language, somebody 
 else should snap her up. 
 
 This he said in a letter to Granville, containing also the most 
 precious document of all — no less than the letter of the squire him- 
 self, making his proposal to his cousin, accompanied by the charac- 
 teristic request, that he (Granville) would look it over and correct 
 it for him, before he arrived to present it. "For," said he, " as 
 you are an author, and have written several things about love, 
 which, I have heard say, are very pretty, you must be a judge of 
 the proper style, and therefore I beg you to help me, being not 
 much used to that sort of thing myself." 
 
 Granville here continued to laugh so heartily, that I accused 
 him of injustice to what seemed a most praiseworthy modesty. 
 
 u But pray," said I, " may I ask your opinion of the composi- 
 lion? I do not, of course, ask to see it." 
 
 " No 5 honour forbids that-, but thus much I may be permitted 
 lo tell, that it is written in a good school-hand, almost all well 
 spelt; and though the sentimental part cannot be complimented, 
 yet as lo style, it is so original, that it is impossible to correct it 
 without deslroying its genuineness. 
 
 44 There is also another despatch," continued Granville, 44 which 
 l am charged to deliver to his uncle, in which he at least shews ge- 
 nerosity, if not delicacy; for he tells him, by way of bribe, that, 
 in consideration of his late losses, he will take Bertha without a 
 fortune." 
 
 " At any rate," said I, growing serious, 44 this is a matter not 
 to be lightly treated." 
 
 44 Certainly not," replied he; 44 for though I thought it but due 
 to our friendship to tell you this the moment I received it, which 
 was not half an hour, ago, I thought myself bound to lay it before 
 my uncle directly, whatever may become of the letter to Bertha." 
 
 44 1 cannot say you are wrong," answered I, losing all disposi- 
 tion to be amused; 44 and who knows how it may be taken by 
 Mr. Hastings?" 
 
 44 1 think I can tell you," said he. 44 It will ruin him with his 
 uncle directly; for the offer, particularly for the reason assigned, 
 will be considered as a deadly affront, both by father and daughter." 
 
 I felt re-assured, but was struck by my friend's assuming a graver 
 air than he had hitherto shewed, when he said, 
 
 44 Although we have but one opinion as to the result lo Man- 
 sell-—" 
 
 44 Who are the we?' 1 '' interrupted 1, u unless that dear Lady 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 265 
 
 Hungerford is apprised of the matter, and has condescended to be 
 interested as to ray share in it." 
 
 44 I need not tell you that she is," said Granville, " and she 
 thinks it may and must lead to a serious decision on your part, 
 which may considerably affect, nay, alter your present position : 
 hence my question to you when I came in." 
 
 " For God's sake, let me know it," returned I, now in down- 
 right alarm. u But Lady Hungerford cannot think this rich churl 
 worthy of Bertha." 
 
 " That she does not," answered he ; " but as no other person 
 is in view, and the field perfectly open, free from even expectation 
 of any other—" 
 
 44 And can that be?" again interrupted I. " Have I disguised my- 
 self so well? Has a seven years' constancy, continued even after 
 rejection ; a disclosure lorn from me by madness 5 a life risked, 
 and renewed devotion ; have all these spoken so indistinctly as to 
 convey no meaning? Surely, they are and must be convinced 
 that—" 
 
 44 Patience, patience, impetuous youth," cried Granville, 44 nor 
 suppose that because you feel every beat of your own heart, others 
 are bound to do so too. In truth, I believe Mrs. Margaret, who 
 discovered you before, is the only one of the family besides our- 
 selves who has had the sagacity to penetrate you now. For, em- 
 boldened by the familiarity which she has been indulged in by all 
 whom she knows, she said tome only this morning, she was as sure 
 as sixpence that Mister Clifford was still in love with her lady." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I could only laugh, and did not desire her to inform Bertha 
 of it, who without that, I am persuaded, has no suspicion." 
 
 " Well, Sir," said I, not a little impatiently % " and what has 
 this to do with Lady Hungerford's surmise? " 
 
 " A great deal," replied he 5 44 for don't you perceive that while 
 there is not a suspicion, on the part of either Bertha or her father, 
 that there is a competition for her hand, a single offer has, at least, 
 a better chance of being listened to? and though he is coarse and 
 rough, yet, as he has no vice, is of their own blood, and rich 
 withal, his sister rather a favourite, and in the same county too—" 
 
 44 O! hold," cried I, more and more uneasy 5 44 you need not go 
 on to enumerate his advantages, but say at once what Lady Hun- 
 gerford thinks about him." 
 
 44 Not so much about him," proceeded Granville, 44 as about 
 yourself, in regard to whom she thinks it unfair that Mr. Hastings 
 certainly, if not Bertha, should be called upon to decide upon a 
 case, when ail is not before thein 5 in short, when there are two 
 strings to their bow, to aet as if there were but one." 
 
266 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 " And what does that imply?" said I, a good deal embarrassed, 
 for I saw there was but one answer. 
 
 " Why, what you plainly forestal," replied he 5 " though I am 
 aware of all the danger to your delicacy and independence, and as 
 jealous for them as yourself. No ; Bertha must know nothing of 
 your wishes or intentions. But with regard to her father it is dif- 
 ferent; and it will only be calling upon you to put the principle 1 
 have sometimes heard you lay down into practice, that a suitor 
 should always disclose his wishes to the parent, before he opens 
 them to the child, from the fear lest, if he secure the affection of 
 the child, and difficulty occur with the parent, a great evil might 
 arise which might have been avoided. 1 ' 
 
 " I have held that opinion," said I, " which I do not retract 
 when I own my hesitation to speak to Mr. Hastings first. For this 
 might only produce rejection, which never, without mockery, 
 could be set at defiance by perseverance 5 while favour on his part 
 would by no means amount to acceptance on hers. Then, as to ad- 
 dressing herself at present, you know, and allow, my objections. 
 The consequence is, I dare not open myself to either. On the other 
 hand, I should wrong the ideas I have of Bertha's sweet character, 
 if I did not leave it to itself in judging intrinsically upon the merits 
 or demerits of any one who addressed her, without influence or 
 bias from any thing extraneous. Shall I own to you, that with all 
 my sense of inferiority to her in every light that can be imagined, 
 I should feel little flattered at being merely preferred to this dolt, 
 who certainly sat for Pope's description of a country lover : — 
 
 4 Who visits with a gun, presents you birds, 
 Then gives a smacking kiss, and cries, no words ; 
 Or with his hound comes hallooing from the stable, 
 Makes love with nods, and knees beneath the table; 
 Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are coarse, 
 And loves you best of all things — but his horse.' " 
 
 4i To that," replied Granville, "every one that knows you boiti 
 must assent 5 but what is the result ? " 
 
 " That I will cling to my persuasion, my invincible assurance, 
 that, even though Mr. Hastings were to recommend it, and it 
 were a thousand limes more advantageous, the gentle but firm 
 spirit of his daughter would refuse the alliance." 
 
 u I believe you are right," returned Granville 5 " nor will I tax 
 you with much vanity, in not being afraid of such a rival, were you 
 both to appear as candidates together 5 though of the prudence of 
 leaving the field open to all the chances there arc for him, if left 
 alone, but of which he might be so instantly deprived by your mere 
 appearance, I am not so sure. 11 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 267 
 
 " If Bertha's unaided choice,'' returned 1, " weighing her pure 
 silver against this dross, does not reject it, in the language of my 
 Shaksperian ancestor, 
 
 ' Upon my honour, for a silken point, 
 I'll give my barony.' " 
 
 " My lord baron," replied Granville, with some irony, M I only 
 wish you had your barony to give ; and as the dinner bell is ring- 
 ing, I humbly take my leave." 
 
 By this I found that he was not too well pleased with my rejection 
 of his advice; but buoyed up by my conviction that Bertha, even 
 were she portionless, would never stoop to be the wife of a man 
 by nature made for a groom, I could not repent my decision. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXY. 
 
 FARTHER UNCERTAINTIES ABOUT BERTHA.' — I FEEL LOST AMID A CROWD OF SUPERIOR 
 INTERESTS. — PICTURE OF MY NEW RIVAL, AND OF THE SUCCESS THAT ATTENDED 
 HIM. 
 
 Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse, and he makes 
 it a great appropriation of his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. 
 1 am much afraid thai my lady his mother played false with a smith. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Merchant of Venice. 
 
 At dinner we were all, I thought, strangely quiet, or rather ab- 
 sent. Whether Mr. Hastings had already communicated Mansell's 
 advance to his daughter or not, both of them seemed occupied with 
 anything but what was before them. Whether, too, Granville was 
 really angry with me, and had made Lady Hungerford share his 
 anger, I could not tell, but both where grave and distrait. 
 
 For myself, though I can hardly account for it, I never was so 
 little so. I believe I felt a sort of triumph in having, as I thought, 
 done such justice to Bertha. The only observation that could even 
 tacitly allude to the subject was by Mr. Hastings himself, who, by 
 way of informing those who did not know it, said, 
 
 " Mr. Mansell comes to-night. He does us a great deal of hon- 
 our." 
 
 At which, the dinner being ended, he rose, as had been his custom 
 since his illness, and, attended by Bertha, retired to his siesta in 
 his room. 
 
 She soon returned, and the conversation became a litlie more 
 
268 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 lively. I had watched her upon her father's announcing Mansell's 
 visit, and thought I could perceive her colour heightened. She 
 knows the object, thought L 
 
 On her return, Lady Hungerford, looking at Granville, said, " I 
 think we might have excused our Nimrod of a cousin upon this oc- 
 casion." 
 
 "He, however, brings Lucinda with him," observed Bertha, 
 4k which will be something ; "—-at which, I know not why, she 
 reddened slill more. 
 
 44 You always were fond of Lucinda," said Lady Hungerford, 
 trying to talk. 
 
 44 I like her spirits when my own are down," replied Bertha. 
 44 It would not be amiss, I think, if she were here now, for we seem 
 any thing but preparing for a wedding." 
 
 44 Do you think that is always so sprightly?" asked Granville. 
 44 If your own were approaching, would you be grave or gay?" 
 
 At the words 44 your own approaching," I thought she looked a 
 little conscious, nay gave a slight start, and I own this puzzled me. 
 
 44 You have no right to ask such questions of young ladies," said 
 Lady Hungerford. 
 
 44 Besides," added Bertha, 44 he knows that I will never leave 
 papa, and am therefore married already." 
 
 44 Aye, but you have not vowed it upon the altar," said Gran- 
 ville, 44 and without that, the marriage is void." 
 
 44 But I have vowed it in my own heart," answered Bertha, 44 and 
 that is the same thing." 
 
 This alarmed me. 
 
 44 By no means," pursued Granville ; 44 at least I hope not; for I 
 once, because I was a younger brother, made a vow of celibacy 
 myself, yet was most ambitious to break it from the moment I saw 
 this lady : I do hope I am not foresworn. Speak to it, Clifford-, you 
 are a scholar, and an Oxford casuist. Relieve my anxiety ; for the 
 alternative is loo horrible." 
 
 44 1 have no doubt," said I, 44 you could never persuade yourself 
 to break your vow. What would you give me, therefore, if I could 
 bring you off?" 
 
 44 All I am worth in the world, and ten times more — when I can 
 get it." 
 
 44 1 hope Mr. Clifford will succeed," said Lady Hungerford; 
 44 for I am a little alarmed at perjury, and knew nothing of this 
 
 vow." 
 
 44 Well, then," observed I, 44 let me remind you of the gallant 
 Lord Longueville, of the studious but too amorous Count of Navarre. 
 He foreswore the company of women, for the sake of study, for 
 three years ; but forsook his books for a mistress in three days. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 269 
 
 When reproached for his broken vow — you remember his reply ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then when you have got it by heart, do not forget to repeat it 
 with all Lord LonguevihVs fervour to the I empress of his love' — 
 
 1 Did not the heavenly rhetorick of thine eye, 
 ('Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument), 
 Persuade my heart to this false perjury?' 
 
 You see it was her ladyship's fault, not yours." 
 
 "That is making me an accomplice," said Lady Hungerford, 
 " and I do not accept the excuse." 
 
 " Aye; but mind how he goes on," added I : — 
 
 " [ Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment; 
 A woman I foreswore ; but I will prove, 
 Thou being a goddess, I foreswore not thee.' " 
 
 " Thank you 5 thank you a thousand times ! " cried Granville, 
 rapping the table. " My conscience is relieved, and I will not send 
 back the licence, as I was thinking of doing. Confess, Honora, 
 that yours is relieved too — 
 
 4 Thou being a goddess, I foreswore not thee.' " 
 
 "Upon my word," observed the lady, " I never knew a belter 
 get-off." 
 
 "Mr. De Clifford always had the art of bringing Shakspeare 
 beautifully to his aid," said Bertha. ' 4 It is not the first lime I have 
 heard him do so." 
 
 These words were music to me, for I thought of the York 
 brook. 
 
 "As we are both so obliged to him," added LMy Hungerford, 
 " being bolh so scrupulous in conscience, we ought both to reward 
 him ; Ihough, for my own part, I know not how." 
 
 "Nor I," said Granville, "except by wishing, if he too has 
 made a vow of celibacy, he may have just the same reason for 
 breaking it as I have." 
 
 Here Lady Hungerford rewarded him with a look worth a 
 diadem. 
 
 " I have made no vow of celibacy," said 1 5 " but whether I have 
 or not, the consequences will,, I fear, be the same." 
 
 " I see not why," observed Lady Hungerford. 
 
 "The road to heaven is difficult," I answered; "yet no other 
 will I, or can I, take. I must therefore for ever stand still." 
 
 Here a long pause ensued, and there seemed a consciousness 
 upon us all 5 but though I watched Berlha, I could make no discovery, 
 
270 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 A reserve, which I heard had lately become habitual, since her 
 father's illness, or rather since her brother's death, was in no point 
 relaxed 5 and whether I had made any way with her or not, it was 
 quite beyond me to decide. I was therefore not sorry when she made 
 the signal for retiring; though I could not make out a reason 
 for a more formal curtesy than usual, as she passed me to quit 
 the room. 
 
 I observed this to Granville when we were alone, and asked him 
 if he knew the reason, or whether Mr. Hastings had apprized her 
 of Mansell's intentions. 
 
 "Poor girl," said he, " she has certainly been much harassed — 
 what with her fears for her father, what with the prince, and what 
 with you." 
 
 "With me!" cried I; "how can any thing connected with me 
 have affected her?'' 
 
 "You forget the danger you underwent for her sake," said 
 Granville, "and the effect such gallantry must always have upon a 
 young girl, even if she were not one of the most grateful and sen- 
 sitive of her sex. When the news came, she was absolutely shattered 
 with it-, and she has since confessed to Lady Hungerford, that she 
 has been doubly smitten in conscience ever since, for what she now 
 thinks the unkindness of her conduct to you when you left her, as 
 you both thought for ever, two or three years ago. She has also re- 
 proached herself with not having been able to thank you as she 
 ought. Hence, no doubt, she cannot treat you with that perfect 
 exemption from constraint which she otherwise might shew. I do 
 not, however, bid you augur any thing from this, particularly 
 favourable to your views. She is perhaps afraid of you, after all that 
 has passed 5 and we are often afraid of people whom either we think 
 we have used ill, or to whom we feel too much obliged. Mansell's 
 arrival will certainly not add to her freedom of manner with you or 
 anybody else. In short, you must rest upon your oars, and watch 
 the chapter of accidents." 
 
 "This cub of a cousin's visit," said I, musing upon (his speech 
 of Granville's, "is unlucky, for I have but a week, in which there 
 will be much to do for us all. Pray heaven Mr. Hastings may not 
 be overset with it." 
 
 " He is a good deal already," replied Granville. "The letter of 
 his illustrious nephew has had the effect I predicted. His offer, to 
 use his words, to take Bertha without a fortune, in consideration 
 of his losses — — " 
 
 " The only redeeming feature I know of in him," said I, "had it 
 not been so vulgarly expressed. " 
 
 "So I think," observed Granville; "but so does not think Mr. 
 Hastings, who considers it as a bitter affront, which would induce 
 
OFx, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 271 
 
 him, he says, lo forbid his visit at once, but that he thinks himself 
 bound to lay his pretensions before her who alone is to judge of 
 them. 6 Here, however, 1 said the lofty old gentleman, 4 1 feel safe. 
 Bertha will not degrade herself in degrading me" At the same time, 1 ' 
 added Granville, "he is embarrassed by Mansell being accompanied 
 by his sister, whom Bertha is, with reason, fond of, and who has 
 no doubt undertaken to be her brother's advocate with her. Alto- 
 gether, " concluded Granville, "it is most provokingly untoward, 
 both to Lady Hungerford and me." 
 
 "To say nothing of your humble servant," said I; and we rose 
 from table. 
 
 Every thing about the house now assumed a sort of mysterious 
 air 5 everybody was occupied, and yet, seemingly, nothing visible. 
 Mr. Hastings was closeted with his daughter ; Granville, with Lady 
 Hungerford; the servants, with those of Mansel! and his sister, who 
 had preceded them, and were settling their rooms. 
 
 This lasted some time. I felt deserted, and in the way ; and lo 
 relieve my own abstraction, as well as enjoy the fresh air of the 
 evening, E sallied by myself, as I did once before, into the well- 
 known flower-garden. Here I would have avoided the summer- 
 house, for which I had imbibed an unaccountable terror, but seeing 
 a female descending the steps, from the alcove, I, with some little 
 emotion, imagining it might be Bertha, turned towards it, but 
 found it was my friend Mrs. Margaret. She had gone there, she 
 said, for her mistress's pretty bonnet, which had lain there forgotten 
 for two days, and would be quite spoiled by the damp at night. 
 
 "But," added she, depositing the bonnet on a garden bench, 
 "I really don't know what's come lo dear Miss Bertha about her 
 things, which she minds no more now, than if they just cost nothing 
 at all. Indeed, she seem never to know where she leave them, and 
 be quite changed as to that ; for formerly she were, perhaps, too 
 particular, and would almost scold me, if she could scold anybody 
 ( bless her, dear young lady ! ), if I happened to forget them. But 
 that prince — his highness— have, I think, turned us all quite beside 
 ourselves; and then Mr. Granville, and her ladyship; and poor, 
 dear master, not yet recovered ; and all I don't know what beside, 
 have quite put her out— turned her and me too, I may say, topsy- 
 turvy. Ah! Sir, things were not so once; before young Master 
 Charles met his death so sorrowful ; but we are glad you so nobly 
 revenged him on that lord, as, to be sure, you felt justified for it • 
 and yet that lord, too, wanted lo marry Miss Bertha. Dear me, how 
 she is beset, and she can fancy nobody; and now they do say — but 
 I suppose, Sir, you know; you have heard " 
 
 I had not been acquainted with Mrs. Margaret so long, as not to 
 know that to stop her when once set a-going was as impossible as to 
 
272 DE CLIFFORD,- 
 
 do so by an alarum clock, and that the only way was, as with that, 
 to let her run down of herself. I, however, did not reflect, that by 
 putting a question I should wind her up again, or perhaps I should 
 not have said, in answer to her long address, 
 
 44 Indeed, my good Margaret, I know nothing, and have heard 
 nothing-, what do you mean?" 
 
 "Dear me," returned she, "and you can't guess about Mr. 
 Mansell — another cousin? Sure love for her runs in the family; for 
 if it had not been for her ladyship, I always used to think Mr. Gran- 
 ville would have offered, and she always used to favour him more 
 than anybody else, except, indeed, when she was a little girl, when 
 you first came here, and then I thought she liked you best 5 but them 
 days be all gone, and the thing is, what we are to expect now 5 for 
 Mrs. Dickens, Miss Lucinda's maid, who you must know is my 
 sister, says, there will be a great to-do at (his visit, for that it was 
 no secret at Buntercomb Hall ( that is, Squire Mansell's ) that the 
 squire meant to marry his cousin 5 that is, if she would marry him 5 
 of which Dickens, and Mr. Sidebottom, his valet, to whom he told 
 it, says, there can be no doubt, as the squire be so rich, and us not 
 half so rich as we were. But, thank God ! there is still enough 5 and 
 I said, says I, to my sister Dickens, 6 Don't you be loo sure of that ; 
 for my Miss Bertha, was she starving — which she ain't — won't 
 marry no one that she don't like, and depend upon it all this fuss 
 will come to nothing.' But then the wonder is, who she will marry, 
 for I suppose she must marry somebody. There was first, Sir 
 Harry \ and then my lord marquess ( him as you shot) 5 and then 
 the prince ( and I own I did not think that would be ) ; and now Mr. 
 Mansell. What will come of it, God only knows." 
 
 Seeing she had now run herself down again, I was afraid of asking 
 another question, so observed, 
 
 " Perhaps it is not necessary that any thing should come of it, 
 especially as Miss Hastings is so devoted to her father." 
 
 This, I thought, would close the conversation ; but she would 
 not be so let off, for she immediately rejoined, 
 
 4 4 That is very true ; but then, Lord bless me, Mr. Hastings, poor, 
 dear gentleman, is far from well, and, at any rate, can't live for 
 ever, and then who will she have to confort and protect her, dear 
 young lady?" 
 
 To this I did not think proper to answer, and was moving away, 
 when she fixed me, spite of myself, by saying at once — 
 
 4 4 Now, I have a fancy in my head, that would be best of all ; and 
 that is, that, as you are now such a grand gentleman, and certainly 
 cannot deny all that you said when you were deleerous, the very 
 best thing that could happen would be for you and my young lady 
 to make up a match together • and that's what poor Madame Porte, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 273 
 
 the governess that's gone, used to say — though to be sure it was 
 only in joke — when you used to dance together, and Madame used 
 to call you charming enfant, which they say means an infant, 
 though you were then near as high as you are now, and no more 
 an infant than I am/ 7 
 
 Here the good Margaret was completely done 5 and , as I felt 
 more and more the impropriety of this sort of conference, I put an 
 end to it at last by saying, 
 
 " My good friend, thanking you for all your good news and your 
 good wishes, I do not think Miss Hastings would be pleased with 
 you for talking thus 5 besides, the dews are beginning to rise, and 
 that pretly bonnet you were so anxious to rescue from the damp of 
 the summer-house seems likely to be absolutely drowned in its pre- 
 sent place of safety." 
 
 This appeal to her, in her capacity of mistress of the robes, did 
 more to stop her than that to her discretion, and snatching up the 
 bonnet, which she said she was afraid would require new ribbons, 
 she allowed herself to retire from the gossip she so dearly loved. 
 
 For my part, though she had told me nothing new, I could not 
 help revolving what she said of the situation of Bertha, evidently 
 any thing but tranquil ; nor did I fail to fasten upon the hints, tri- 
 fling as they were, which shewed that this sagacious soubrette had 
 certainly, for some reason in her own mind, entertained a notion 
 which it made my heart dance to think of 5 and I began to lean se- 
 riously to an opinion, that an old waiting-gentlewoman, who had 
 been about her mistress from a child, had full as good a chance of 
 knowing that mistress's inclinations as a friend of her own rank. To 
 be sure, however, I could detect nothing but her own good wishes 
 for me in this instance, and for those I was thankful. 
 
 But the noise of wheels, and the trampling of horses rattling 
 through the park, put an end to these speculations and my solitude 
 at the same time, and drove me to the house to observe the arrival 
 of the aspiring Mansell and his sister at the hall. His valet and her 
 femme de chambre had already introduced themselves in one 
 carriage, and now his barouche and four, with two outriders, one 
 preceding and one following, thundered for admittance. 
 
 It was dusk, and seemingly a hundred lights illuminated the 
 windows to do the new suitor honour. For though his letters to 
 Granville and his uncle were not six hours old, yet the harbingers 
 who had brought them had had too much of the spirit of their 
 vocation not to let out their suspicions, which suspicions, turned 
 into certainties, were now known to every servant of the house. 
 Hence all had been for some time on the watch, and were now 
 advanced to do honour to this squire of high degree, who, on the 
 11. 18 
 
27 i DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 strength of his eight thousand a-year, came, like Jupiter in a shower 
 of gold, to take possession of his Danase. 
 
 For my part, I had no feeling but of great curiosity. As to any 
 fear of his success. I was perfectly tranquil. How different from 
 my feelings when the mere sight of Prince Adolphus on the road 
 filled me with terror ! 
 
 Granville did the honours of the reception, for Mr. Hastings 
 pleaded his weak state, and Bertha had shut herself up in her 
 chamber. Lady Hungerford was not called upon, and was particu- 
 larly disinclined to appear; and myself had too little hope to please 
 or be pleased, and indeed, was too little entitled to seem one of 
 the family, to present myself. I remained therefore, in the music- 
 room, whence I heard the rough abrupt voice, which I had always 
 so disliked, introducing the owner with — 
 
 " Granville, my hearty, how are you? How is uncle? how is 
 cousin Bertha? Where are they all? Why one would suppose they 
 did not care for one, any more than you, who did not invite me to 
 your wedding: but you see I am come for all that. By the way, 
 how is my lady? Here, I suppose?'' 
 
 This volubility could by no means be stopped, and like Mrs. 
 Margaret's, could only be allowed to go down of itself 5 for, while 
 going, not all the attempts of Miss Mansell could succeed in obtain- 
 ing an answer to inquiries, in a very different tone, after her uncle 
 and Bertha. 
 
 They were both in deep^mourning for their father, though the 
 squire's countenance did not exhibit that of a mourner; and enter- 
 ing the music-room and seeing me, he started as if he had trod on 
 a serpent. However, he put his hand to his hat, which he had not 
 yet taken off, saying, 
 
 " Ha! I believe I know you; I met you at York, didn't I? A 
 friend of Granville, who shot Albany for killing poor Charles. All 
 obliged to you for it, no doubt." 
 
 Here Miss Mansell interposed, and with some displeasure, said, 
 
 44 Brother, this is not the way to speak to Mr. De Clifford, to 
 whom we are all under obligations. I have the pleasure of knowing 
 him too \ I trust he has not forgotten us." 
 
 I recognised this speech with the politeness il deserved, and the 
 bustle being a little over, Margaret brought down a request from 
 her mistress that Miss Mansell would go up to her. 
 
 Granville proposed to her brother to accompany him to his 
 chamber, which was accepted, and I was again left alone. 
 
 My situation was certainly a peculiar one. A comparative stran- 
 ger, or at least totally unconnected with a family, far removed from 
 the obscurity of mine, with whom it never had had intercourse, yet 
 forming, as it were, a part of it. from being its only favoured guest 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 275 
 
 on an occasion so solemn, lhat few besides near relations are ever 
 invited-, moreover, destined to be on the spot in one of the most 
 trying scenes of domestic history, an offer of alliance with the 
 heiress of the family, calling forth all that could interest its feelings 
 or prospects : — for me, almost a wanderer, little better than an 
 adventurer, though a successful one, to be in this situation, moved 
 my astonishment, and I felt as if I was in a dream. I at least felt 
 that I was not in my place, and had no business here; and though 
 the furniture of the room recalled, as it always did, very intense 
 impressions of such early times, that it told me I was not the stran- 
 ger I thought myself, still I could not shake off the uncomfortable 
 lowness and want of support that suddenly came over me. The 
 whole house seemed occupied, full of interests which did not in 
 their opinion concern me; of me all were independent; Mr. Hast- 
 ings absorbed in family views, Bertha in most exciting communi- 
 cation with Lucinda, Mansell with Granville, Lady Hungerford 
 engrossed with her own impending crisis, certainly any thing but 
 in connection with me § even the servants taken up with one another, 
 regardless of the solitary guest in the music-room, and perhaps 
 wondering what business he had there. 
 
 All this had an indescribable effect upon me, and I almost wished 
 myself away. Nor was I at all consoled when the butler came in to 
 say that the ladies not being able to attend the tea-table, Mr. Hast- 
 ings feeling ill, and the other gentlemen very busy, Mrs. Margaret 
 would, if I pleased, make tea for me in her room, and he would 
 bring it without delay. 
 
 The tea I declined ; but it is extraordinary how this little demon- 
 stration of what I thought abandonment, in my then state of mind, 
 affected me. I never felt so forlorn. How unequally do we appear 
 framed for the exigencies of our nature, according to the state of 
 our nerves or temper, when they overtake us. When I went out 
 to meet Lord Albany, I thought it was to certain death; yet I went 
 with a sort of triumph ; here, because half-a-dozen persons were too 
 much occupied with their own interests to attend to mine, and I was 
 left alone for half an hour, I felt abandoned by the world. 
 
 An end, however, was at last put to my solitude, and my uneasi- 
 ness with it, by the approach of Granville and Mansell, who, as 
 usual, notminding who heard him, and talking loud as he crossed 
 the hall, observed, in any thing but a whisper, 
 
 " It does not signify; faint heart never won fair lady, or, as we 
 used to say in the grammar, £ fortuna favet fortibus f and with 
 this they entered the room. 
 
 Here the squire lamented that he had come an hour too late ; 
 44 fowl wanted you," said he to Granville, " to see my new set of 
 bays. Four such prime ones were never seen on York course, 
 
276 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 and so Lord Greenturf was forced to say, though he looked blue 
 with jealousy. Cost a hundred-and-twenty a-piece, as well as the 
 two grooms' nags, who match exactly, so that at any time I can start 
 six-, and when you come to Buntercomb, I will shew you such 
 stables; I pulled down the old ones the moment the old gentleman 
 died. It was. provoking that you and Bertha did not see the cattle 
 when we drove up; I thought she might be at the window, but the 
 days do shorten confoundedly in August. By the bye, what sort of 
 a smith have you got here, for I am sorry to say a shoe of one of 
 the leaders is loose?" 
 
 In this way went on this accomplished ornament of the West 
 Riding, and I only heartily wished that the object of his aspirations 
 had heard every word he uttered. Was I too vain in thinking that, 
 though I could not descant so glibly on coach horses, I might enter 
 the lists with him in any thing else? 
 
 As the travellers had had no dinner, an early supper was ordered 
 to be prepared for them 5 and as Bertha was still engaged with Miss 
 Hansen, the squire said he would go and inspect his cattle's berths 
 in the stables, an evening ceremony which he always performed 
 himself, and one of the most rational he did perform. 
 
 While gone, Granville informed me that the critical communica- 
 tion had been made to Bertha, not only by her father, who had 
 added not a word on the subject, leaving her to be sole judge of it, 
 but by Hansen's letter, which he had insisted upon Granville's 
 presenting. And as I was afterwards fortunate enough to see this 
 precious epistle, perhaps, while fresh with the subject, it may not 
 be inopportune to set it forth here. 
 
 Dear and charming Cousin, 
 
 " I have always so much admired you, that you have made me 
 do what I did not think of doing, for four or five years at least — 
 that is, resolve to marry 5 and I trust this will plead something in 
 my favour, for a young heir, just come into eight thousand a-year 
 (any part of which you please shall be settled upon you), might 
 perhaps look to a few years' liberty, before he tied himself up. But 
 I consulted Lucinda upon it, and she advised it, and moreover, it 
 was some of her books that made me resolve upon it 5 for she lent me 
 4 Sir Charles Grandison' to read, which, though rather long, by skip- 
 ping Clementina, and reading nothing but about Harriet, I got 
 through it in about two months. You must know, I thought you very 
 much like Harriet, particularly when you blushed, which she was 
 always doing, till she got married, which is the way I believe of 
 young ladies. I thought too I was in some things like Sir Charres— 
 that is, he seems always to have had a handsome chariot and six. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 277 
 
 and always two, if not three, outriders ; but he did not hunt with 
 old Selby, which I should have done, and he certainly fenced 
 belter than I can, and loved it more, but that's all out now. 
 
 " Well, reading this book made me feel queer about you, and 
 though Lucinda did not seem to think I should succeed (I am 
 sure I don't know why, for I don't think you will get a better 
 match), she said she would not oppose my going over to Foljambe 
 to make the offer, saying I could be but refused, which was very 
 friendly of her. What was more, she said she would go with me ; 
 so between us both, and particularly as your fortune is so hurt, I 
 hope you will accept me for better for worse. 
 
 44 If you do, as Granville is to be married in a week, and one 
 trouble will serve, I think we had belter all be joined together at 
 the same time. Be assured I will make you a better husband 
 than any of those lords you have refused $ and so believe me, dear 
 Bertha, 
 
 44 Your affectionate cousin, 
 
 Martin Mansell. 
 
 " Bunlercomb Hall f 
 Aug. 4, 178—. 
 
 44 N.B. I have told your father I want nothing down •, but I sup- 
 pose he will settle the Foljambe property on us and our children." 
 
 It may be supposed how likely such a letter was to make a fa- 
 vourable impression on such a being as she to whom it was ad- 
 dressed. But for Lucinda's visit, she would have entreated her 
 father to dismiss him the house $ and Lucinda herself, who had not 
 seen the letter, but to whom it was shewn by Bertha, gave the 
 thing up. ♦ 
 
 That lady had never been sanguine as to her brother's success 5 
 but being sincerely fond of her cousin, so as ardently to desire the 
 closer alliance, could it be effected, and thinking really there were 
 some good points in her brother, which, if his coarseness could be 
 put up with, might redeem him, she had hoped, though faintly, 
 that she might do his suit some service by accompanying him on 
 his visit. But this letter closed all the hope she had entertained, 
 and she had nothing to reply to the instant and decided rejection of 
 Bertha, founded upon such a total dissimilarity of character. 
 
 Her only remaining endeavour, therefore, was to stand between 
 her brother and his uncle's indignation, which was disposed to shew 
 itself in no measured terms 5 in which, with some difficulty, owing 
 to Mr. Hastings' great respect for her, she succeeded. 
 
 For appearance' sake, she made suit to Granville to ask permis- 
 
278 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 sion of Lady Hungerford for herself and Mansell to altend their 
 nuptials •, which, as her prudence suggested, being no more than 
 a natural proceeding, would cover his failure and let him down 
 softly. 
 
 But, whatever Mansell's good points, his prominent feature being 
 a churlish vanity, exalted to its height by his accession to for- 
 tune, he would not admit, any more than he could understand, the 
 lenitives his sister proposed. Resolving, therefore, to quarrel out- 
 right with his relations for what he called their ill usage of him, 
 lie thought it a noble revenge to quit the house in open anger, and 
 thus proclaim his want of success to the world at large. 
 
 He therefore gave orders for an immediate departure, which he 
 was only prevented from carrying into effect that very night by the 
 influence of his more sober-minded sister. 
 
 This, however, occasioned horror and disappointment to Mrs. 
 Dickens, and her colleague, Mr. Sideboltom, who had comforted 
 themselves with the prospect of a long and jolly sojourn at the 
 park, in all the enjoyment of bridal importance, and lamented the 
 vexation and trouble of repacking the trunks almost in the moment 
 they had finished the pleasanter task of emptying them. The con- 
 fusion of the whole house may be imagined ; the supper was alto- 
 gether disdained by the high-minded squire, who ordered Side- 
 bottom to attend him with brandy and water in his own room where 
 he opened his griefs to him, as, for want of a better confidant, he 
 generally did. 
 
 His sister remained half the night with Bertha \ Lady Hunger- 
 ford, much discomposed, sought her own apartment \ Granville 
 was occupied with softening his uncle 5 and I, again finding myself 
 de trop, began a second time to wish myself away. 
 
 The next morning the sun shone bright. The four bays, of a 
 hundred-and-lwenty pounds a-piece, were at the door at six, and 
 looked so bright and pawed the ground so proudly, that the squire's 
 pride was somewhat revived, and the ferocity with which he leapt 
 into the barouche softened on going off in such beautiful style. 
 The place, however, he swore never to see again 5 and so ended 
 this new alarm, and the amatory expedition of the squire of Bun- 
 tercomb Hall to Foljambe Park. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 279 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 MY CONSCIENCE ACCUSES ME TO BERTHA AND HER FATHER. 1 — -RAILLERY AND 
 BEAUTIFUL TENDERNESS SHEWN BY LADY HUNGERFORD. 
 
 I have heard 
 That guilty creatures at a play, 
 Have, by the very cunning of the scene, 
 Been struck so to the soul, that presently 
 They have proclaimed their malefactions. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Hamlet. 
 
 The peace of the family was now resumed. Mr. Hastings and 
 his daughter felt relieved from a severe invasion of their quiet ; and 
 Lady Hungerford and her betrothed were left to the delights of pri- 
 vacy in their most interesting of all situations, more and more ex- 
 citing as the day of their nuptials approached. They were so wrapt 
 up in one another, that they seldom appeared to the family, except 
 at meals : and as Mr. Hastings' invalid stale kept him frequently 
 from being visible, it was scarcely possible for Bertha and myself, 
 spite of the precautions she thought herself bound to adopt to avoid 
 it, not to be thrown sometimes together. 
 
 Yet, she avoided it even with ingenuity \ for if she could not re- 
 fuse to Granville and Lady Hungerford the pleasure of walking 
 together alone, and she either retired to the summer-house her- 
 self, or sought an airing in the park, on one pretence or other she 
 always took Margaret with her as an attendant, and, in the house, 
 she was always in her own, or her father's apartment. 
 
 In the latter only was T allowed the delight of her society, and 
 to listen to the charm of her conversation, which flowed in the easy 
 accents of a pure and natural mind, so as only to render her beauty 
 still more fascinating. 
 
 Women, indeed, they say, have a natural eloquence ; but I can- 
 not describe how winningly Bertha's seemed a part of her very na- 
 ture $ so that, added to the expression of her features while con- 
 versing, she seemed to have sat for a picture I always thought too 
 lovely to be real, till I saw and heard her. 
 
 " Her voice had magic sweetness in its sound ; 
 Her modest eyes appeared afraid to wound ; 
 And yet so cheerful was her artless guise, 
 Gay could she look, and then had laughing eyes ; 
 But when she spoke, such honied words she'd find, 
 As all unweeting stole away the mind." 
 
280 
 
 DE CLIFFORD: 
 
 Of this I was made more than ever sensible when admitted to 
 form one of a party with herself and father, and the time so passed 
 seemed moments of sunshine, in which I absolutely basked 5 for 
 here, free from all constraint, she indulged in the expression of 
 thoughts which denoted a justness of understanding, as well as a 
 sensibility of feeling, which, like the song of the Sirens, 
 
 " Took the prison'd soul, 
 And lapt it in elysium." 
 
 Many of these thoughts arose spontaneously in her own breast, 
 but many more from the cultivation of those elegant studies, for 
 which the retirement hitherto of her life, and her constant inter- 
 course with her refined friend, had afforded so many opportunities. 
 What struck me was, that although her reading was various, in 
 various languages, and her memory retentive, she knew no trash, 
 but had confined herself to masters alone. Hence very modern 
 authors had little share of her acquaintance. I speak, however, as 
 I once spoke before, of above half a century ago, when Hayley and 
 Delia Crusca were the leaders in fashionable literature. 
 
 On these occasions her father was a delighted listener as well as 
 myself. Indeed it had been long her amiable province to soothe his 
 couch by reading to him from her favourite authors, many of 
 which, when I first was admitted to this most rational, as well as 
 most engaging occupation, lay upon the table, either not yet re- 
 moved, though finished, or wailing in their order to be read. 
 
 Among these, the morning after the retreat of the squire, I found 
 a volume of Otway had been selected by Mr. Hastings himself, for 
 the sake of recalling to his memory the touching acting of Mrs. 
 Barry in Belvidera. I, who had just witnessed the witchery of Mrs. 
 Siddons in the same character (then in her early days), was pleased 
 to find it was appointed for that morning's reading, and forestalled 
 the happiness of hearing it from the lips of Bertha. But she disap- 
 pointed me, partly because she had not studied the play for she ge- 
 nerally studied beforehand whatever she read to her father), chiefly 
 from modesty, her own pure attribute, which forbade her. she said, 
 from attempting such a display. 
 
 46 And so, 1 ' said Mr. Hastings, 44 though I have two young people 
 who can read, I am to lose my play, because each, I suppose, is 
 afraid of the other." 
 
 " Mr. De Clifford," observed Bertha, 44 has shewn no fear ; and 
 as he has so lately seen what is said to be the perfection of acting in 
 this very play, he has the less excuse if he refuse to please you. and 
 instruct me, by being so good as to read it. 1 ' 
 
 Thus called upon, though I really felt a sort of nervousness 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 
 
 281 
 
 on account of my audience, I could not decline, and look up 
 the book. 
 
 I have been thus particular, only to introduce the strange and 
 unforeseen feeling which some of the scenes occasioned in my own 
 mind ; and, as I could not help thinking, in Bertha too, if I might 
 not also add Mr. Hastings himself. 
 
 Here was what Fothergill would call a mesalliance, against the 
 consent of the father of the lady. That father, too, had, before it 
 happened, covered the bridegroom with favour and protection. No 
 very great difference, thought I, from my own case. His indigna- 
 tion and resentment were proportionably severe, even to cruelty, in 
 the total abandonment of his daughter to ruin and degradation. His 
 curses were shocking, and the agonizing misery of the tragedy all 
 arises from this forbidden marriage. 
 
 I own, as I advanced, my senses were sadly diverted to my own 
 case, at least as I had sometimes fancied it, could I have succeeded 
 in my wishes for Bertha ; nor was I unmindful of the feelings and 
 character of Jaffier (who, I could not help thinking, would then 
 have been the Clifford of the play), as they unfolded themselves in 
 the strong language of the poet. Thus, in the very opening, I 
 thought I heard Mr. Hastings instead of Priuli, when he exclaims, 
 
 No more! I'll hear no more; begone and leave me." 
 
 Of course, I applied the answer of Jaffier to myself. 
 
 " Not hear me ! by my suffering but you shall. 
 My lord, my lord ! I'm not that abject wretch 
 You think me. Patience ! where's the distance throws 
 Me back so far, but I may boldly speak, 
 In right, though proud oppression will not hear me ? 
 
 So far so good, for Jaffier ; but then the answer hit hard. 
 
 " Have you not wrong'd me in the nicest point, 
 The honour of my house ? " 
 
 This cut pretty deeply ; but mark how it went on— 
 
 " When you first came home 
 From travel, with such hopes as made you looked on 
 By all men's eyes ; a youth of expectation; 
 Pleased with your growing virtue, I received you, 
 Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits ; 
 My house, my table, nay my fortune too, 
 My very self was your's ; you might have used me 
 To your best service. Like an open friend 
 I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine, 
 When, in requital of my best endeavours, 
 You treacherously practised to undo me, 
 
282 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 Seduced the weakness of my age's darling, 
 My only child, and stole her from my bosom." 
 
 This touching speech, touching spile of the cruel sternness that 
 afterwards so bitterly revenged the father on his child, whether 
 from its own intrinsic pathos, or the application I made of it to 
 what might have been my own case, affected me so much that I 
 faltered, and for a moment could not get on 5 and whether the 
 sympathy which this occasioned, or the unhappiness thus wrung 
 from the injured Priuli, produced the effect, the eyes of both father 
 and daughter seemed ready to run over. 
 
 " You read too feelingly," said Mr. Hastings. " I am afraid this 
 won't do for an old man like me. However, my little Bertha there 
 will never turn Belvidera, so I will not fear being Priuli." 
 
 "Mr. De Clifford does indeed read these terrible reproaches 
 feelingly, and would almost make us hate Jaffier," observed Ber- 
 tha, while her countenance shewed a thousand emotions, which 
 she vainly attempted to hide. " I know not," continued she, 
 " what is to come of this play, if the interest begins so early to be 
 so powerful. But pray go on." 
 
 I obeyed, with the account which Jaffier gives of the cause of 
 Belvidera's affection for him, his having saved her life — 
 
 "For t>om that hour she loved me, 
 And for her life she paid me with herself." 
 
 "A payment perhaps," observed Mr. Hastings, "not unde- 
 served, had she only done the common justice due to a father 
 who doated upon her, by asking his consent. What says my dear 
 Bertha?" 
 
 " That, with all her tenderness for her husband, I will never be 
 Belvidera," replied Bertha. " But again, pray go on." 
 
 I did so, but had not much pleasure in the next speech, which 
 did not raise Jaffier in our opinions, though it made us shudder at 
 the dreadful imprecations of Priuli — 
 
 " You stole her from me ; like a thief you stole her ; 
 At dead of night : that cursed hour you chose, 
 To rifle me of all my heart held dear. 
 May all your joys in her prove false like mine ! 
 A sterile fortune and a barren bed 
 Attend you both ; continual discord make 
 Your days and nights bitter and grievous ; still 
 May the hard hand of a vexatious need 
 Oppress and grind you, till at last you find 
 The curse of disobedience all your portion." 
 
 " This is too horrible," said Bertha 5 " and 1 really did not think, 
 Mr. De Clifford, you could read so stern a part so sternly. Wrong 
 
OK, THE CONSTANT MAN. 28.'* 
 
 as she was, poor Belvidera was here too much punished. What says 
 papa?" 
 
 "I know nol, dear, 1 ' answered Mr. Hastings; "for, thanks 
 to Heaven and you, I know not what it is to have a disobedient 
 daughter." 
 
 At this he smiled more sweetly than I thought he could smile, 
 and that smile irradiated the whole countenance of his daughter 
 with a joy that made her look like an angel. 
 
 The horrors, however, went on, and both father and daughter 
 shuddered when Priuli, being told of his grandchild, wishes him to 
 live, to "bait them for his bread, and din their ears with hungry 
 cries " — 
 
 " Whilst his unhappy mother 
 Sits down and weeps in bitterness of want." 
 
 The unrelenting, fiendish old man, when Jaffier wishes himself 
 in his grave, adds, 
 
 " And she too with thee ; 
 For, living here, you're but ray curs'd remembrancers." 
 
 At this Bertha seemed struck with terror, and even Mr. Hastings 
 in a voice of agony exclaimed, " This is too much ! " 
 
 Some pity now, however, arose for Jaffier, when he said, with 
 something like dignity — 
 
 " You use me thus because you know my soul 
 Is fond of Belvidera. You perceive 
 My life feeds on her ; therefore thus you treat me." 
 
 Here Bertha became more than ever attentive, particularly where 
 Jaffier asks, if he were a thief, what should hinder him to send her 
 back with contumely, ♦ 
 
 " And court his fortune where she would be kinder ? " 
 
 But when Priuli says, " he dare not do it," her whole heart seemed 
 melted by the simple words of the reply — 
 
 " Indeed, my lord, I dare not; 
 My heart that awes me is too much my master." 
 
 My own feelings indeed responded to this, when, as I could not 
 help, I made the case my own, and thought the question was of 
 Bertha instead of Belvidera. 
 
 These applications made the play too powerful for me, even be- 
 fore the appearance of Belvidera. But when, in the close of the first 
 act, her conjugal tenderness is so feelingly described, and Jaffier, 
 
284 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 in his gratitude, bursts into that ebullition of admiration for the 
 sex, elicited by his love for his wife, which had charmed me so 
 often, it was not easy for me to be so close to the exemplification 
 of its justice, and proceed with calmness. In fact, I looked at Ber- 
 tha more than at the book, when I repeated rather than read — 
 
 " Oh ! woman ! lovely woman! Nature made thee 
 To temper man : we had been brutes without you : 
 Angels are painted fair to look like you : 
 There's in you all that we believe of heaven, 
 Amazing brightness, purity and truth, 
 Eternal joy and everlasting love." 
 
 This glowing picture of all that I had so long loved, while the 
 object of it was seated so close to me, and in every turn of her 
 countenance shewed its fidelity, so overpowered me, that, no 
 longer master of myself, the book fell from my hands, and little 
 was wanting to shew what was passing within me. 
 
 " It is nothing, 1 ' said I, seeing my friends under some anxiety, 
 thinking I was ill. " A little air will cure all this." 
 
 And Bertha anticipated me in opening the door into the garden. 
 I returned to the book, and would have resumed it 5 but both father 
 and daughter protested against it, and Mr. Hastings proposed that 
 Bertha should go on with the play. 
 
 " That would disgrace me," said I. 
 
 " I am sure it would me" observed Bertha. " I never knew 
 what it was that gave Otway the character of pathetic before. No-, 
 I will never pretend to read him aloud." 
 
 At this moment the butler announced it was twelve o'clock, and 
 that the pony-chair was ready. 
 
 44 1 am glad of it," said Bertha \ " for the mere opening of this sad 
 tale has overset me." 
 
 " Well," said I, " pray don't overset the pony-chair." 
 
 Which Mr. Hastings declared was a bon mot, and as Sterne 
 said a bon mot was always worth a pinch of snuff, he offered me 
 his box. 
 
 Left to myself in the library, I more than ever revolved my si- 
 tuation, and found it only the more dangerous, from the very cir- 
 cumstances which I had courted at a distance with so much ardour ; 
 I mean the disappearance of all uncertainty as to Bertha's engage- 
 ment, and the wonderful changes in my own fortune. Had these 
 difficulties continued, all that would have been left me would have 
 been to have submitted to my fate as a matter of necessity, which, 
 in time, I might have accomplished. But these being done away, 
 and the ground left fairly open, my hopes were no longer occupied 
 with any thing extraneous, or beyond my control, but were aft 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 285 
 
 centred in the one powerful question, dependant upon my own 
 merits and pretensions, the decision of which could not now be 
 far off. 
 
 This was the fearful point at which I had arrived. In this agi- 
 tated state I had continued a full hour * when, by way of diversion 
 of thought, I took down from the bookshelves, not a sermon, or 
 Seneca's Morals, which courted my first notice, but a volume of 
 Sir Charles Sedley's amatory poems ; and in conning these over I 
 was surprised by Lady Hungerford, who had returned from her 
 ride, during which she had fallen in with Mr. Hastings and Bertha. 
 
 My surprise may be imagined, when, rather abruptly (perhaps, 
 for her, indiscreetly), she accosted me with — 
 
 " Well, Mr. De Clifford, I find you have this morning gained 
 Bertha's heart." 
 
 I started at the words, looked pale and red, and began to stam- 
 mer out my wonder, when she cooled all by saying, 
 
 " There I have done wrong-, I never considered how little you 
 sanguine people can bear to be metaphorically treated, and how 
 matter-of-fact every thing ought to be that alludes to your feel- 
 ings. Know then, that by gaining the lady's heart, I meant nothing 
 but her praise (and give me leave to tell you, that is no light thing), 
 for the manner in which you read Otway this morning." 
 
 " And did she not add, how like a simpleton I behaved — that 
 a green school-girl could not have done worse?" 
 
 " She said you frightened her by being taken ill, but I heard 
 nothing of being a simpleton." 
 
 On this I could not help recounting to my kind protectress all 
 that had oppressed my fancy, in regard to my own case, as the play 
 proceeded, till at last it overcame me— when she observed, 
 
 "This will never do. Why, in nerves, cousin Mansell would 
 beat you hollow; and, had he chosen to stay, with* such inconve- 
 nient feelings as yours, might have proved a powerful rival " 
 
 " And would you have me discard those feelings?" 
 
 " Not exactly, but I would not have them prevent action at a 
 crisis where action is necessary. Though you are in love with Miss 
 Hastings, I suppose, you do not expect Miss Hastings to be in 
 love with you, without knowing any thing about the matter; or 
 that she should throw herself at your feet, when you ought to be 
 at hers? I doubt, if she did, if you would love her half so well. 
 Consider, she is one of those 
 
 • Who would be woo'd, and not unsought be won.' " 
 
 "O!" returned I, "play not with my feelings, If I thought 
 that seeking her would find her- — find her what I wish — how could 
 I ever cease the pursuit till what I wish was crowned?" 
 
286 
 
 DE CLIFFORD \ 
 
 " Bravely spoken," replied the lady; "but depend upon it, to 
 let fall your book in a tremor, for fear of shadows of your own 
 creating, is not the way to succeed." 
 
 " May I look upon this as encouragement?" 
 
 "If by that word you wish to ask if I know any thing of my 
 friend's heart towards you, in the first place, let me say that if ^1 
 did I would not tell you ; but, in the next, let me say I do not.|That 
 she esteems you — thanks you — wishes you happy, as her father 
 does too— and thinks you read Otway charmingly — is certain. 
 Beyond this I know nothing." 
 
 "Can you then tell me nothing favourable to my hopes?" — 
 "No." 
 
 " Am I to despair?"— " No." 
 
 " Would you have me to propose this instant?" — ei No." 
 
 " Alas! then what am I to do?" — "Go on; but let no more 
 books fall in a fright." 
 
 Thus did this dear lady, I will not say amuse herself by playing 
 with my feelings, but (perhaps without intending it) tantalize me 
 with alternate encouragement and depression, for so I considered 
 this conversation. 
 
 She wound it up with a strange ironical request, which her own 
 happy spirits on her approaching nuptials, I suppose, prompted, 
 that I would put into writing, and present to Bertha, a statement 
 of the particular beauty of person or mind for which I so loved 
 her ; and, as I seemed so afraid of presenting such a thing myself, 
 she said she would be my ambassadress, and present it for me. 
 
 I received this, as it was proposed, jestingly 5 but having only 
 that moment laid down the poems I had been reading, I took them 
 up again and said, 
 
 " Sedley shall answer for me, for I agree with him in every 
 one of these lines, only changing the name of Chloris for Bertha. 
 
 * Chloris, I cannot say your eyes 
 Did my unwary heart surprise; 
 Nor will I swear it was your face, 
 Your shape, or any nameless grace; 
 For you are so entirely fair, 
 To love a part, injustice were. 
 No drowning man can know which drop 
 Of water his last breath did stop ; 
 So when the stars in heav'n appear, 
 And join to make the night look cle ar ; 
 The light we no one's bounty call, 
 But the obliging gift of all. 
 
 • He that does lips or hands adore, 
 Deserves them only, and no more; 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 287 
 
 But I love all, and every part, 
 And nothing less can ease my heart. 
 Cupid that lover weakly strikes, 
 Who can express what His he likes.' " 
 
 " Upon my word," said the lady, "you shew yourself a pro- 
 mising pupil of your master, Granville. I don't think he could 
 have answered better. But give me the book, for the lines are very 
 pretty, and I must shew them to him.'/ 
 
 At that moment he joined us^ but only to take his mistress away 
 with him to billiards. Oh ! how I envied him ! 
 
 How did that envy increase as lime advanced, though envy is 
 not the proper name for it, for I seriously rejoiced. His position, 
 however, made my own more restless, and it seemed unreasonable, 
 nay, almost unnatural, that I should not feel the same contentment 
 that he did. 
 
 His betrothed looked handsomer every hour, as the hour ap- 
 proached 5 handsomer as her consciousness increased. Yet at one 
 time, instead of being, as she generally was, radiant with smiles, 
 I found her in tears — Granville by her side. 
 
 Mr. Hastings and Bertha were taking their morning's drive, and 
 I had settled, by way of a ride, to go to York, though it did not 
 take place. They were in the music-room, thinking they should 
 be alone, when I interrupted them. 
 
 I quickly retired, lost in wonder at what could have occasioned 
 the emotions I witnessed. At first I thought they had had a quarrel 
 (such things have happened), and a lovers' quarrel is proverbial. 
 Yet they seemed the tears of extreme tenderness, not of bitterness ; 
 and Granville, who told it me, lest I should misconstrue them, said 
 they were really so. 
 
 In fact, as the day approached when this charming woman was 
 to give herself up to another, the remembrance of* her first lord 
 occupied her mind almost to absorption. He had always loved her 
 so devotedly, and with such perfection of esteem, that she had begun 
 to tremble with fear that the step she was about to take might be 
 deemed ungrateful to his memory. Granville's tender attentions, 
 too, increasing as the day of his happiness drew nigh, her fears 
 and conscious associations also augmented ; and though far from 
 repenting, still farther from retracting, the recollection of the ten- 
 derness of him who first possessed her love, mixed something like 
 compunctious doubts as to the strict propriety of her present con- 
 duct, with the softness of her remembrance of the past. 
 
 This she ingenuously owned to Granville, together with all 
 she had felt of former happiness with Lord Hungerford. 
 
 "Yes," said she, "though greatly older than myself, I loved 
 him, not only with all the devotion of the respect he commanded 
 
288 
 
 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 from every one, but even with all the fondness he could himself 
 desire. His mind and his heart were both young, and his inesti- 
 mable worth heightened my feelings into real passion. You must 
 not expect more, therefore, from me than I gave to him. Though 
 the eight years that have passed since he was lost to me have allayed 
 the poignancy of grief, and though I have admitted you to my 
 heart, it is impossible that I can displace him from it, or cease to 
 love his memory. If I thought, therefore, he could now look down 
 upon me with displeasure^ for being able to love you, the heart I 
 give you would be a desolate one/' 
 
 44 Here," said Granville, " she was so overcome as to produce 
 those emotions in which you surprised us. Truth is, we neither of 
 us had ever thought of discussing the question of second marriages; 
 I, from being too happy to make any question about it; she, from 
 the perpetual example of the world, till awakened by the near 
 approach of the ceremony, and its association with his memory, 
 who had so entirely possessed her esteem and affection. For my 
 own part," concluded Granville, " I only honoured her, nay, 
 loved her more and more for it; and when she uttered something 
 like an excuse, and a hope that this overtake would not hurt me, 
 I told her with a full heart that she only raised herself higher than 
 ever with me, as it did myself in my own mind, for having been 
 able to win the affection of so sweet a character. With this she was 
 satisfied, and we are belter friends than ever." 
 
 I was quite penetrated by this account, and regarded Lady Hun- 
 gerford with even more than usual admiration. That one so su- 
 perior to almost all her sex in every thing that the world deemed 
 desirable — brilliant, elegant, full of rich talent, and with almost a 
 masculine understanding, formed for public display — should in 
 reality possess also the soft and feminine graces that so charm us 
 in private life, moved my wonder, and more than ever excited my 
 attachment. I could only more than ever congratulate my friend 
 on his good fortune. 
 
 Nothing remarkable passed during the rest of the day, except 
 the finishing of Venice Preserved, which, though moving both 
 for horrors and for tenderness, yet as they did not draw forth any 
 thing that bore upon my own case, I pass them. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN: 
 
 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 DISCOURSE WITH BERTHA ON CONJUGAL DUTY. — BEAUTIFUL AND JUST, BUT NOT BLUE. 
 
 My noble father! 
 
 I do perceive here a divided duly. 
 
 Shakspeare.— -Of/ie//o. 
 
 One only day now remained, before the fates of Granville and 
 that admirable woman, whose winning qualities I have so often 
 described, were to be united. The day was spent in pleasing, yet 
 awful, and in some respects sorrowful, preparation 5 pleasing and 
 awful to the parties most concerned, who were to leave Foljainbc 
 from the church door 5 sorrowful to those who staid behind. 
 
 Granville and Lady Hungerford, as may be supposed, were oc- 
 cupied with one another, at least, as much as their gentleman and 
 lady of the bed-chamber would permit them. These, in arranging 
 matters both for the ceremony and their departure afterwards, 
 seemed by far the principal characters in the drama-, but for myself, 
 the chief incident of the morning was another reading in Mr. Hast- 
 ings' apartments. Here, forgetting my preceding disaster, I was 
 requested again to be the lecturer. 
 
 The story of poor Belvidera having been finished, Bertha had 
 selected another, which she said she was particularly fond of, and 
 begged me to recite the struggles of Imogen on parting with her 
 husband Posthumus, banished for having married her. 
 
 Here was another clandestine match, as well as mesalliance 
 and though the choice was evidently fortuitous, I \3ouid not help 
 wondering at my being fated a second time, and so soon, to plunge 
 into scenes so illustrative of my own particular feelings. 
 
 Though the king (Cymbeline) had bred up Posthumus in his 
 court, " made him of his bed-chamber, and "put upon him all (he 
 learning of his time," in which Imogen seems to have been his ap- 
 proved companion, no sooner were they married than the king 
 hates his daughter. 
 
 I own I felt much, and looked keenly at Mr. Hastings, when in 
 his first speech of reproach, Cymbeline calls her a 6 disloyal thing' 
 that should repair his youth, but had heaped a year's age upon him. 
 
 u It seems to have been his own fault," said Mr. Hastings 5 "for, 
 from what I know of the play, he countenanced the intimacy be- 
 tween his daughter and Posthumus." 
 
 11. 19 
 
290 DE CLIFFORD} 
 
 " You will find that he did so," said Bertha 5 " and being so ac- 
 complished as was her husband, I like her firmness in asserting his 
 superiority to all others, however great.'* 
 
 Upon this I went on, and read— 
 
 " Thou might's! have had the sole son of my queen." 
 
 " O! blest that I might not! I chose an eagle, 
 And did avoid a puttock." 
 
 " I think," said Mr. Hastings to Bertha, and handling his snuff- 
 box pretty briskly ( as he always did when some stirring (nought 
 occurred)— " I think if you were Imogen I could give a name to 
 that puttock ; but for the eagle I am at a loss." 
 
 Bertha's cheek was instantly suffused with crimson ; and as neither 
 Manseil nor the prince any longer made her uneasy, I could not 
 tell why. She answered her father, however, by playfully saying, 
 that he ought not to be guilty of personal applications, and begged 
 me to go on, I did so with— 
 
 •* Thou took'st a beggar ; 
 Would'st have my throne a seat for laziness." 
 
 " No; I rather added a lustre to it." 
 
 " Sir, 
 
 It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus, 
 You bred him as my play-fellow, and he is 
 A man worth any woman ; over-buys me 
 Almost the sum he pays." 
 
 Here again Mr. Hastings began to comment : — " Aye," said he, 
 " here was the great mistake. Cymbeline gave his daughter a play- 
 fellow, one whom he himself had done all he could to make amia- 
 ble, and then hates her for loving him." 
 
 " I knew, dear Sir," replied Bertha, u you would think her ex- 
 cusable for loving him, and I think so too, but not for marrying 
 hirn without her father's consent." 
 
 " That is a good creed for all daughters," observed Mr. Hastings; 
 " mind you always act up to it." 
 
 " I trust I shall, Sir," answered Bertha ; and from having been 
 easy and almost playful, she became unusually pensive. 
 
 I began not to relish the conversation, and went on with the dia- 
 logue. 
 
 " What! art thou mad?" 
 
 " Almost, Sir. — Heaven restore me! Would I were 
 A neatherd's daughter, and my Leonatus 
 Our neighbour shepherd's son." 
 
 " This is downright rebellion," said Mr. Hastings, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 291 
 
 " Butitisjnost pathetic," observed Bertha, " and tells a thousand 
 affecting things. A princess to be so disinterested, and humble ; 
 though to be sure so noble a husband as Leonalus justified her." 
 
 " And yet, 1 ' remarked her father, " you would no more, I am 
 sure, bid defiance to your parent, than you would throw away your 
 rank in society for the noblest-minded husband." 
 
 " I am not sure," replied Bertha, " if you had bred me up with 
 him, and made him my play-fellow, like Posthumus." 
 
 " It would destroy all distinction," said Mr. Hastings, " and let 
 in the levellers with a vengeance." 
 
 " With submission," said I, Shakspeare, by this, did not mean 
 that Imogen, being a princess, would have become a mere pea- 
 sant for the sake of living with Posthumus ; but that she would pre- 
 fer to have been born in a peasant's rank, with a husband she loved, 
 to being the daughter of a king with one she detested." 
 
 " I think Mr. De Clifford has well explained," said Bertha. 
 
 " Perhaps he has," answered Mr. Hastings, " and no doubt you 
 agree in the explanation." 
 
 " That I certainly do," replied she. 
 
 "I cannot blame you," said her father; "but being not a 
 neatherd's daughter, but a gentlewoman, I have no fear of any 
 neighbour shepherd's son." 
 
 The conversation here, I thought, had become too grave, and I 
 did not much like the turn it had taken. I was not ill pleased, there- 
 fore, when Mr. Hastings said, 
 
 " I do not much admire these unequal matches, nor yet more, 
 where the old greybeards of fathers are, us usual, brought in growl- 
 ing at their daughters for making them. Priuli was bad enough, 
 and Cymbeline is worse, Give me something more sunshiny—a 
 scene where the choice and the happiness of the parties are equal 
 and mutual, and not leavened by any querulous, peevish papa." 
 
 d You at least, dear Sir," said Bertha, " cannot be afraid of such 
 a character; but I own the result of poor Imogen's marriage is 
 rather too affecting for the day before the bridal morn of our dear 
 friends. There should be none but joyful nuptials in the moment 
 of theirs. Perhaps Mr. De Clifford will find us something more 
 appropriate." 
 
 "With all my heart," said Mr. Hastings. 
 
 I immediately laid the book down, and took up another volume 
 of the bard, in which seeing The Merchant of Venice, I was 
 struck with the wish of presenting the beautiful character of Portia 
 to Bertha 5 not, indeed, as a specimen of her own modest and 
 lovely feminineness, but as an example of the strong sense and 
 decision, mixed with softness, and conjugal attachment, which often 
 distinguishes the sex. Portia, as well as Bertha, had been bound 
 
292 
 
 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 by a promise lo her father regarding her marriage, which, like 
 Bertha, she was prepared lo fulfil, though to her own risk. She, 
 too, with all her energy, had notions, the description of which 
 delights the heart, in respect to the relations of a wife to a husband. 
 
 With this view I passed cursorily through the previous scenes till 
 I came to Bassanio's arrival at Belmont, and the instant interest 
 kindled by him in the bosom of Portia. Here I watched the mind 
 of Bertha as it was developed in her manner of feeling and judging 
 of the event. Portia is so afraid of losing Bassanio, as she must do 
 if he chooses the wrong casket, that, with a sweet touch of nature, 
 she begs him to delay the ceremony of choosing ■ — 
 
 " I pray you, tarry ; pause a day or two, 
 Before you hazard ; for in choosing wrong, 
 I lose your company ; therefore forbear a-while ; 
 There's something tells me — (but it is not love)— 
 I would not lose you ; and you know yourself, 
 Hate counsels not in such a quality. 
 But lest you should not understand me well 
 ( And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought ), 
 I would detain you here some month or two. 
 Before you venture for me." 
 
 "A pretty bold declaration, and honest withal, for a young lady," 
 observed Mr. Hastings. "What says Bertha?" 
 
 " Far too bold, 1 ' answered Bertha, "for one who says, 
 
 1 A maiden should have no tongue but thought.' " 
 
 " I concluded you would say so," I observed; "for no young 
 English lady would have so produced herself. But you are to re- 
 collect she was an Italian who said it, and not only so, but a great 
 heiress, and almost a queen (indeed, represented as a sovereign in 
 the original novel), and called upon to act and decide for herself in 
 a situation of great publicity, as well as difficulty. She might have 
 been even Amazonian, and not thus out of nature 5 and 'tis there- 
 fore that the real sweetness, and even humbleness, which we after- 
 wards see belonging to her, please us so much." 
 
 "Let us have the passages," said Mr. Hastings; "I know she 
 redeems herself." 
 
 I immediately turned to (he delightful, dignified, yet modest 
 account of her feelings to Bassanio, on the occasion of his success- 
 ful choice : — 
 
 " You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
 Such as I am. Though for myself alone, 
 I would not be ambitious in my wish 
 To wish myself much better ; yet for you, 
 I would be trebled twenty times myself ; 
 A thousand times more fair— ten thousand times 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 293 
 
 More rich. But the full sum of me 
 
 Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised ; 
 
 Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
 
 But she may learn ; and happier in this, 
 
 She is not bred so dull but she can learn : 
 
 Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit 
 
 Commits itself to yours to be directed, 
 
 As from her lord, her governor, and king." 
 
 Here breaking off, I could not help saying, that whether as to the 
 sentiment, or the interest it created for the speaker, I thought it 
 among the most beautiful things in Shakspeare. 
 
 "One feels it in one's very heart," observed Bertha, who during 
 the whole of these interesting lines marked in the various changes 
 of her complexion, and in every turn of her features, the effect they 
 had upon her head and heart. Her lips, though not audible, shewed 
 by their motion thai she was repealing every word within herself ; 
 and when I had finished, the words 44 charming! she has indeed 
 redeemed herself," escaped, though in a subdued voice, from her 
 evidently o'er-fraught bosom; and though she said no more, she 
 completely, by the beaming intelligence of her eye, seconded her 
 father when he said, 
 
 44 A noble girl! I retract all I said of her forwardness ; she has 
 all the softness, with none of the violence, of Imogen." 
 
 "She is, indeed, a heroine," continued Bertha, after a little 
 silent meditation, as if recalling the succeeding scenes; "but a 
 soft, as well as an energetic one 5 and when I think of the accom- 
 plishments of her husband, and that all tha t she afterwards so boldly 
 did, was to relieve his affectionate heart from the insupportable 
 woe of thinking he had destroyed his friend, I can forgive, nay, 
 even admire, her man's attire." 
 
 " 1 believe you, dearest," said Mr. Hastings 5 44 you would do it 
 even for your father, were he in the same situation/' 
 
 44 It would not be the will that would be wanting," returned 
 Bertha, looking fondly at her parent. 
 
 I 44 1 believe you there, too, my child," said Mr. Hastings, return- 
 ing all Ihe fondness of her looks, 44 for I verily think you would do 
 as much for a father as a husband." 
 
 44 As I am not married," observed she, half smiling, half serious- 
 ly, 44 the experiment luckily cannot be made 5 if I were, I would 
 only pray that I might never be put to the trial ; for though, per- 
 haps, I might be an Imogen, I could not be Belvidera." 
 
 44 And why not?" asked her parent. 
 
 44 Belvidera, you know, was the darling of her father's age 5 and 
 yet she left him 4 in the dead of night.' That- whether in day or 
 night — I could not do, whatever the merit of him who sought me 
 
294 
 
 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 Indeed, the proposal to do so— wronging his benefactor on the 
 tenderesl point, when under such obligations to him — would^have 
 lowered my opinions of Jaffier, and rather turned me from 'him. 
 This, and his weakness all through the play, cause a break in the 
 interest, terrible as it is ; and I almost love, as well as esteem, 
 Pierre, better than his friend." 
 
 How did I not hang on all this ! How intensely did I not wish 
 her to go on, when colouring, as if she was going too far in hazard- 
 ing a critical opinion, she paused and stopped. Oh, how does not 
 the retiring modesty of a woman enhance the beauty and expression 
 of her sentiments, whatever their justness or rectitude! 
 
 " Why does my dear Bertha pause? 1 ' said Mr. Hastings, to my 
 great pleasure. "Why does she not go on, and tell usher reason 
 for preferring Imogen to Belvidera?" 
 
 "Cymbeline was a tyrant,' 1 answered Bertha • " Priuli, before 
 he was betrayed, as I may say, by his daughter, and him he so 
 bountifully protected, the most loving of fathers. His very revenge 
 — so shocking, as to amount almost to madness, and for which he 
 was so dreadfully punished afterwards, by remorse, the severest 
 avenger — proceeded from his absorbing fondness for this child, 
 who left him. But Cymbeline seems to have cared little for his 
 daughter, to whom he had given Poslhumus as a play-fellow 5 and 
 the attachments of play-fellows are not soon forgotten. 1 ' 
 
 Here she paused again, and, indeed, seemed much disconcerted, 
 for I own I was devouring her with my eyes, while hers were 
 downcast. Recovering at last, she said, 
 
 *' But I believe I had better not play the critic, papa, but leave 
 you and Mr. De Clifford to settle the merits of the two ladies. All 
 that I mean is, that Poslhumus, being of a higher character than 
 Jaffier, and Cymbeline less fond of his daughter than Priuli, I per- 
 haps might have imitated Imogen, but not Belvidera." 
 
 "Then, as to Portia?" asked Mr. Hastings, seemingly delighted 
 with her. 
 
 "Oh! she is altogether beyond me," replied Bertha, "almost 
 to undersland, much more to imitate. She is the noblest of heroines, 
 and yet the gentlest of women. Her masculine exertions to relieve her 
 husband's anguish leave us all behind in energy ; yet her profession 
 of what ought to be the feeling of a young creature about to give 
 herself up to the man of her choice, 
 
 ' As to her lord, her governor, and king,' 
 
 seems to belong to the most winning softness I know nothing like 
 it, even in Shakspeare." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 295 
 
 '! I love your comments, my child, better than any thing," said 
 Mr. Hastings. 
 
 " Except the commentator?" observed 1 3 and if my looks did 
 not express the delight of my heart, I have neither heart to feel, 
 nor looks to express any thing. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 I AM ALARMED AT A CHANGE IN BERTHA.' — THE RESULTS TO WHICH IT LED. 
 
 Not so sick, my lord, 
 As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Macbeth. 
 
 To my astonishment, and probably my reader's too (especially 
 after the last chapter), the next time I saw Bertha exhibited an 
 eclipse of all those lovely beams of pleasure and intelligence which 
 had been prompted by our delightful occupation. At dinner, where 
 I had promised myself the pleasing familiarity which thai family 
 meal generally creates, Bertha was distant, timid, and silent, 
 scarcely replying to any thing I directed to her 5 and her eyes, so 
 far from encountering mine, were for the most part averted. 
 
 To me this seemed not less than an eclipse of the sun, which 
 " with fear of change perplexes monarchs," It was most certain 
 that it thoroughly perplexed me. It was in vain I sought to account 
 for it. At first, I thought she might be ill •, but her looks forbade 
 that, for never had she looked so well. Yet what toad happened? 
 Could she be capricious?— No. Did she wish to try her power?— 
 No. To teaze ?— No. To play the coquet?— O no! 
 
 I did all I could to bring her round. I tried to talk of Portia — 
 she would not join. I asked questions as to Saxony— she knew no- 
 thing about it. Lady Hungerford's plans as an ambassadress — she 
 seemed to have lost all interest in them. Never was there so dull a 
 dinner, and never was I so glad to be released by the withdrawal of 
 the ladies. 
 
 Willingly could I have left the table and sought the solitude of 
 the park • but this the etiquette of Mr. Hastings, invalid as he was, 
 forbade. He had engaged, prompted, I suppose, by questions about 
 Germany, and Granville's approaching mission there, to give him 
 a full sketch of its manners and politics immediately after the peace 
 of Aix-la-Chapclle. when he began his travels , which ended in the 
 
296 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 Saxon alliance. There was no stirring till this was over, when we 
 were summoned to coffee in the drawing-room. 
 
 Alas ! here I found Bertha, though less distant, and almost striv- 
 ing to be civil, still absent, and far from giving me that frank look 
 of amity, denoting the full intercourse of mind and thought, which 
 had lately so delighted me. On the contrary, she seemed under 
 constraint, and flying to Lady Hungerford, as it were for protec- 
 tion, on my approach. 
 
 I felt depressed, but for what reason I could not divine, and was 
 not the happier because I knew her superior both to coquetry and 
 caprice. 
 
 Her change was still more marked when, according to custom, 
 music was proposed. It was not that she objected 5 on the con- 
 trary, though she declared against singing, she hastened to look out 
 some instrumental duets ; but when Lady Hungerford and Granville 
 proposed vocal music, she opposed it still more, observing she was 
 not equal to it. It was only when Lady Hungerford declared it 
 would be their last vocal treat, perhaps for years, that she yielded, 
 and selected an air of Zingarelli. 
 
 " It is beautiful," said Lady Hungerford ; u but, on leaving Fol- 
 jambe and Yorkshire, and Mr. Granville and Mr. De Clifford on 
 almost the very spot where they composed it, I wish to hear once 
 more that joint production of theirs which you used once to like, 
 and sung so well — the stanzas to Hopeless Love." 
 
 To my disappointment and dismay, Bertha made a thousand ex- 
 cuses. She had neither voice nor spirits 5 which Granville said was 
 very affronting; while I, for my part, stood aloof, wondering what 
 all this could mean, yet thinking it bad taste, as well as being afraid, 
 to add my entreaty to the others. 
 
 While doubtful of success, however, Mr. Hastings himself came 
 to the aid of the petitioners, saying it was ungracious to refuse 
 while both author and composer were at her elbow \ and observing 
 how he liked the air, and that he had not heard it for a long time, 
 Bertha could no longer withstand what it absolutely puzzled as well 
 as grieved me to think she had so long resisted. That it was per- 
 sonal to myself or Granville, I could not believe 5 yet a sort of con- 
 fusion in her manner, while evading the request, added to the per- 
 plexity which her demeanour had occasioned. 
 
 In this awkward way (for so I may call it) the stanzas commen- 
 ced-, but soon all awkwardness fled, and was forgotten in the ex- 
 quisite pathos of the air, and the feeling which this sweet daughter 
 of harmony could not help infusing into it. We were all breathless 
 while the performance went on, and when it was over, Granville 
 said she had made him in love with his own composition \ to which, 
 rallying, she answered, that was no compliment— it was so easy to 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 297 
 
 do so. But when Lady Hungerford was pleased to approve, and be- 
 gan to read some of the stanzas, she was actually confused, and 
 looked embarrassed. 
 
 All was enigma to me, and not a pleasant one ; yet the composi- 
 tion, and the heightened beauty of the syren, with the justice she 
 did to it, penetrated me to my inmost feeling. Still I said nothing, 
 till Mr. Hastings, who had wheeled his chair close to the instru- 
 ment, roused me by observing, 
 
 " Why, you are not so frank as Granville 5 you won't confess the 
 pleasure you must feel in the performance of a composition in which 
 you had so great a share." 
 
 To this I replied what I sincerely felt, that I thought so much 
 more of the performance than the composition, lhat I had forgot 
 who were the composers. 
 
 At this I observed Bertha looked down, and seemed again em- 
 barrassed, from which she was not relieved by what passed on my 
 remarking that I never felt some of Waller's most beautiful lines 
 brought so home to me. 
 
 u O! pray let us have them," said Lady Hungerford; "I like 
 Waller's little turns. I suppose they were to Sacharissa ? " 
 
 "If Ghloris was Sacharissa," I replied, " they were; but they 
 are entitled only 6 To a lady singing one of his own compositions.' " 
 
 But here I stopped for a moment, for at the name of Ghloris J 
 observed the confusion, if I may so call it, of Bertha increase ; she 
 even blushed " celestial, rosy red," and Lady Hungerford gave her 
 a significant look, while, almost to relieve her, she begged me to 
 give them the lines I had menlioned. They were these : — 
 
 " Chloris, yourself you so excel, 
 When you vouchsafe to breathe my thoughts, 
 That like a spirit, with a spell 
 Of my own teaching I am caught. ♦ 
 
 " That eagle's fate and mine are one, 
 Who on the shaft that made him die 
 Espied a feather of his own, 
 Wherewith he wont to soar so high." 
 
 " Charming ! " cried Lady Hungerford. " Ingenious Waller ! " 
 
 " Ingenious Clifford, I think," said Granville; u what says ma 
 petite cousine? " 
 
 And he added in terms to Bertha, that she ought to thank me 5 
 which put me rather upon the qui we. Nor was I less so at the 
 reply, when she said, 
 
 " I have, indeed, much to thank Mr. De Clifford for, and upon 
 this occasion I can only say that he was always very refined in his 
 compliments, and fully keeps up his reputation." 
 
298 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 After this she relapsed into deep pensiveness, which lasted till she 
 retired for the night, when she accompanied Lady Hungerford to 
 her chamber. 
 
 What her last words portended, whether they signified appro- 
 bation or tacit chiding, whether pleasure or displeasure at my al- 
 lusion, I could by no means make out. I hoped the first, I feared 
 the last; but the hopes and fears of lovers are too little reducible to 
 reason to be understood, and my conjectures were endless during 
 the night, both as to this, and still more as to the change of manner 
 which had given me such uneasiness. 
 
 If not comforted, I was at least relieved from uncertainty the next 
 morning after breakfast, by Granville. Lady Hungerford, it seems, 
 had seen both this change in Bertha, and my dismay at it, and 
 (kind and considerate woman ! ) had commissioned Granville to 
 explain to me what she thought the cause, as also to beg my for- 
 giveness for having perhaps been the occasion of it. 
 
 In short, whether by way of experimenting on the question (which 
 she now owned she had so much at heart), or sheerly in a careless 
 conversational mood, she had informed Bertha of the manner in 
 which, after rallying me on my evident feelings, she had drawn 
 from me the sonnet of Sir Charles Sedley, addressed to Chloris. 
 
 " This," said Granville, " had filled Bertha with consternation, 
 and alarmed her delicacy so much, that she feared to engage with 
 you as usual, nay, avoided you, as you saw, and felt particularly 
 unwilling to sing what would so strongly remind you of past 
 scenes." 
 
 " She wished those scenes then to be forgotten ? " observed I. 
 
 "I did not gather that, 11 answered Granville; "but as the re- 
 membrance of them seemed called up by herself if she sang the air 
 in question, and coming so immediately after your application of 
 Sedley's lines to her, it filled her with fears, which your own sense 
 of a young woman's delicacy may very well comprehend." 
 
 "Well, indeed, can I comprehend," said I, "any thing that 
 connects delicacy with Bertha, and if this were all, I should be sa- 
 tisfied,- but I fear I am here 4 paltered with in a double sense : ' this 
 anxiety for the preservation of delicacy augurs little for my hopes 
 of favour in another sense, if it does not extinguish them. Am I to 
 understand that her freedom of manner, which so charmed me, can 
 only be restored by her being relieved from all fear of being ad- 
 dressed by me as a lover? If so, I will only pray you to take me 
 back with you to London after the ceremony, or afterwards to Ger- 
 many •, for I shall feel a second time banished from this too interest- 
 ing place, where indeed I was not wise to hazard myself again." 
 
 Do not talk thus,' 1 replied Granville, " for it will deeply hurt 
 Honora, who, as it is, feels that she has not dealt discreetly by you, 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 209 
 
 in revealing whatever was to be revealed by this unfortunate son- 
 net of Sedley's. She certainly thought it might elicit something of 
 encouragement for you, or she would not have ventured it." 
 
 u In which," said I (I fear rather testily), " it seems she did not 
 succeed." 
 
 " Bertha was loo much alarmed," returned Granville, " to be 
 thoroughly understood, and this alarm, though it indicate nothing 
 certain as to success, is, I think, any thing but discouraging. It 
 indeed cuts both ways, but it shews no indifference, which you 
 yourself once told me was the last thing a lover ought to wish to 
 encounter." 
 
 " According to you, then," said I, " if she sedulously avoided 
 me, and never spoke to me again, it would be encouragement." 
 
 He laughed, but said it was at least not so discouraging as a cold 
 politeness. " However," added he, " the ladies are again closeted, 
 and will be so for some time, as it is not yet Mr. Hastings' hour for 
 appearing 5 and if you can calm yourself in the meanwhile, till they 
 re-appear, as I have ten thousand things to do preparatory for to- 
 morrow, and must therefore leave you, I would advise you to 
 do so," 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 CONFERENCES WITH LADY HUNGERFORD AND GRANVILLE, PROMISING TO LEAD TO THE 
 CONSUMMATION OF MY OBJECT. 
 
 Tis a cousummation devoutly to be wished. 
 
 Shakspeare*— Hamlet. 
 
 What say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid ; 
 Demetrius is a worthy gentleman. 
 
 Midsummer Night's Dream. 
 
 It is very easy for a man, the day before his marriage with the 
 woman of his heart, and all his most favourite prospects in the 
 world opening upon him to boot, to desire another, who is upon 
 tenterhooks, to calm himself. 
 
 This was my reflection when the happy Granville left me alone 
 to my sorry fancies, while he went to order the ten thousand things 
 necessary for the happy business of the succeeding day. 
 
 Meantime I paced for ten weary minutes the eating-room where 
 we had breakfasted • then sallied out and did as much by the hall ; 
 then went half-way up stairs, listened, and came down again, all to 
 
300 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 no purpose. I wondered what the ladies were about ; why ladies 
 had so many secrets who had been nearly a month together ; why 
 these had any secrets at all, now that one had parted with her lover, 
 and the other was so soon to lake a husband. Above all, I wondered 
 why they should prefer being alone, when a young gentleman was 
 waiting below longing to walk and talk with them. 
 
 These movements and reflections of mine, however, did not 
 bring them down, and to vary the scene I walked into the flower- 
 garden. There, looking up to the window of Bertha's boudoir, I 
 saw Lady Hungerford affectionately embracing her, both ladies, as 
 far I could make out,^a good deal agitated. " Chere petite ma- 
 man," said 1 5 u she is fondly taking her last leave of her in pri- 
 vate ; " and for fear of intruding upon their notice, I walked away. 
 
 I took several turns, but still they had not descended \ and though 
 I knew not why, in so very simple and very usual a maUer as a tele 
 a tete between two friends, I wondered that this conference should 
 last so long. It seemed as if it never would have an end. 
 
 It was not till I was returning to the house, full half-an-hour 
 after I had left it, that I beheld Bertha through the door-way, cross- 
 ing the hall to her father s room, and Lady Hungerford presently 
 advancing down the steps as if to meet me. She seemed full of 
 meaning, both in her countenance and action, and said rather gaily, 
 
 " As I have lost my knight, I must put up with my squire, as a 
 lady of my consequence cannot take the air unattended, and I want 
 air." 
 
 1 told her, with as much sincerity as gallantry, that there was 
 no service that could be imposed upon me so agreeable, and that 
 I rejoiced that Granville was so occupied thai I might for a moment 
 be lord in waiting in his room. 
 
 " O ! " said she, " never mind him till to-morrow ; the remainder 
 of this day I give to you, as I already have the beginning of it. I 
 have much to tell you, and I think we must adjourn to the summer- 
 house, which has always been to you so eventful." 
 
 I was up in arms in an instant, for I saw there was something 
 important on her mind, which, after this long conference with her 
 friend, I thought portended something of no mean consequence ; 
 and I would have hurried her to the spot she had appointed, but 
 for my respect, and that she protested she would take her own time 
 and her own way in every thing she had to say. I saw there was 
 nothing left for it but to obey, and allowed her, leazingly, as I 
 thought, for it was very slowly, to lead the way to the ominous place. 
 
 "The arms of Saxony !" said she, as, on entering, she looked 
 at the pediment over the door 5 " and the prince of Saxony ! " as 
 she looked at the print over the chimney-piece. "Well, luckily for 
 you, and unluckily for him. that it is all done away with. But, let 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 301 
 
 me see, I perceive not ManseH here, nor Melford 5 she should have 
 had them, if only to keep them in remembrance, or look at them as 
 trophies." 
 
 " Dear, dear Madam," cried I, " what is all this ? ftave you led 
 me here to sport wilh me, after laying me on the rack? It is not 
 like you. For heaven's sake, relieve me— let me not die in igno- 
 rance." 
 
 " I allow," said she, more seriously and most kindly, " you have 
 some reason to complain 5 but, believe me, I am not sporting wilh 
 you 5 I am only not quite certain how to begin, for I am almost 
 astounded myself with wonder. Season, however, your admiration 
 for a while 5 let me recollect myself, and I will endeavour metho- 
 dically to tell you, that I think I see sunshine through the cloud 5 
 though in the first instance I have to throw myself on your mercy, 
 for I have betrayed you^" 
 
 " And is that all?" cried I, much disappointed. " Those foolish 
 verses of Sir Charles were not worth being kept a secret. Granville 
 has just unravelled that mystery. Be assured, dear lady, you are 
 completely pardoned, if such a word can be applied from me to you, 
 and more especially for such a thing." 
 
 " Has Mr. Granville then told you no more? Has he related no- 
 thing that passed between him and his uncle yesterday?" 
 
 "Not a syllable.'" 
 
 "I find, then," continued Lady Hungerford, "I have more to 
 do than I thought; though, if you know Mr. Hastings, you must 
 have seen that you are no common person in his estimation. " 
 
 "To his civilities, nay, I trust I may add, his friendship," re- 
 turned I, " I must ever be alive 5 but I have observed no more.'* 
 
 " See what it is to be modest," replied the lady. " I tell you that 
 his estimation of you is not a common one 5 nay, for him, it is a 
 most w«common one. He leaned much to you for your conduct to 
 his son, and from feeling the injustice of that son's conduct to you. 
 You won his heart afterwards by your attentions to him on occasion 
 of the terrible catastrophe of poor Foljambe's death; and though 
 your unfortunate delirium made separation necessary, still he re- 
 gretted your loss as a companion, and followed your progress in the 
 world wilh interest. But the vivid attachment you shewed for his 
 honour, and that of his darling, heightened a hundred-fold, he said, 
 from the cold treatment you had met with from them, and sup- 
 ported by such gallantry, under such danger, wound up the whole, 
 and he affirmed to Mr. Granville (an amazing admission for him), 
 that he loved you as a son." 
 
 I was delighted, as may be supposed, to hear all this; but, not 
 in the least knowing what it tended to, 
 
 " My dearest Madam," said I, u for pity's sake, tel! me lo what ? 
 
302 
 
 DE CLIFFORD : 
 
 if any thing, this intimation can lead. Flattering and pleasing as il 
 must be to be so thought of by any one, but particularly by Mr. Hast- 
 ings, that it will advance me one inch to the fondest object of my 
 life, I do not see.*' 
 
 44 Then, you are less clear-sighted than I thought,'* answered 
 the lady 5 " for do you not see from Bertha's whole character, that 
 before she could permit her heart to have the semblance of a feeling 
 such as you covet, she must be fortified by the certainty that it 
 would be approved by the parent she adores?" 
 
 " Yes, dear lady,' 1 said I ; * 4 no one can see the father and daugh- 
 ter together, but must be convinced of that. Her devotion of her- 
 self to the maintenance of his honour with the prince would alone 
 prove it, even if I had not witnessed il in all those beautiful senti- 
 ments of filial piety which our little readings have recently elicited. 
 But of what avail is it to me that her father thinks well of me : niy, 
 even (if that could be known) that he woufd not reject me as a son- 
 in-law, unless I had made far more way than I feel I have, where 
 almost alone it is of consequence? Witness the strangeness of her 
 altered lone and distant manner upon a mere and most uncertain 
 hint of my feelings towards her, so recently as last night."' 
 
 Lady Hungerford here seemed a little conscious of something she 
 knew not how to explain, and paused long before she replied. She 
 seemed to be seeking for the proper answer, looked round the 
 room, and adjusted parts of her dress. At length, with a heightened 
 colour, and some hesitation, she said, 
 
 " I was ever a bad one at what may be called management. I am 
 unable to dissemble if I would, and own myself a little entangled. 
 Fear of compromising both your friend Granville and myself, per- 
 haps I may also say 3Ir. Hastings and his daughter, induced me to 
 attempt what is generally dangerous, and never honest, a half 
 confidence. The straightest way, therefore;, is to make up for it by 
 an unreserved frankness, and to confess that, urged by our entire 
 and warmest wishes for your success, we could not leave either you 
 or this dear family especially on the eve of our departure from all 
 of you for some years), plunged, as you seem lobe, in endless un- 
 certainties upon the tenderest. as well as the most important ques- 
 tion that can be agitated, and not make an effort to extricate you. 
 You have yourself often said that absolute rejection was better than 
 suspense ; yet, whether from modesty or hopelessness, you have 
 taken no measures to put an end to suspense 3 nor could I myself 
 know how to counsel you till within these four-and-twenty hours, 
 when, from what fell in Mr. Granville's conference with his uncle, 
 and mine with my dearest Bertha, I resolved not to risk a failure of 
 your consent by consulting you, but to disclose all I knew at once. 
 In a w ord, my betrayal of you has gone much farther than the mere 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 303 
 
 gallantry of the verses to Chloris. Reproach me, if you please, but 
 forgive me if you can, for I have disclosed your whole secret, and 
 Bertha knows how much, how long, and with what constancy you 
 have loved her." _ 
 
 It is not easy to say how I received this startling intelligence. 
 The crisis of my fate was thus brought home, in a manner indeed 
 most kindly meant by the person in the world whom I most con- 
 sidered and admired, and who only honoured me by the interest 
 she took in me; but not the less was it a crisis, fraught with happi- 
 ness or misery. I felt ail its importance, and all its danger — that J 
 was walking on ground mined underneath, and that a few minutes, 
 nay, another word from Lady Hungerford, might overthrow my 
 whole scheme and hope of happiness, and send me for ever into 
 distant banishment. 
 
 My anxiety may be imagined, nay, was depicted in my face to 
 such~a degree, that Lady Hungerford Was alarmed, and was forced, 
 she said, to smile more perhaps than was warrantable, in order to 
 keep me at peace with myself, to say nothing of her. 
 
 " Come," said she, C< I see I have summoned up all the consti- 
 tutional agonies that make such a havoc with your heart whenever 
 it is affected. Do you know you will never make a great man, and 
 least of all, a great statesman, whose first quality is either to be 
 without feeling, or to disguise if he have it, so as it can never be 
 discovered. You might at least have waited till your death-warrant, 
 was signed before you became so terrified. This is not yet the fact; 
 and though I cannot tell, with any certainly, what is, I can tell you 
 that Bertha has long thought of and valued you as a brother, which, 
 for the present, ought to content you." 
 
 " Ah !•" said I, " how much may or may not be in that 'at pre- 
 sent?' and how tame " 
 
 44 For a lover," interrupted Lady Hungerford, "to be ranked 
 only as a brother. Are you, then, one of those ardent spirits which 
 value only that sort of love that takes and shews fire like touch- 
 wood, and of course burns out soon ? I should rather have thought 
 that the pupil of Mr. Fothergill and Mr. Manners would have pre- 
 ferred (as, be assured, experience will prove to you that you ought 
 to prefer) the affection which is the gentle and quiet growth of 
 deep-seated esteem. Such, I may say, is what at this moment 
 actuates me to lake the awful step which is about to decide the cast 
 of my life; and such, I will venture to predict, if you do not throw 
 it away, may in time produce all you wish in her of whom you have 
 so long thought, and so long despaired. But, I cry you mercy!" 
 continued she in an altered tone, seeing that I was not so overjoyed 
 as she expected. " You think, perhaps, that this sort of love, even 
 if it exist (which I know not that it yet does), is of too cold and slow 
 
304 DE CLIFFORD $ 
 
 a growth. You gentlemen enthusiasts would only value a mistress 
 who would, on a moment's warning, be ready at a window with a 
 ladder of ropes. This is not Bertha's character, who, however I 
 could please, and excite, perhaps sport with you, by telling you 
 how she received the intelligence I gave her of your attachment — i — " 
 
 " Ah ! Madam !" said I, " if you would make me your slave for 
 the rest of my life, stop not here * but tell me." 
 
 " Very good," said she; "but as you are to be Bertha's slave, 
 not mine, this will be no inducement. At any rate, it would dis- 
 appoint you 5 for it was not half vehement enough. There were no 
 tears ; no hysterics 5 not even a tremor — a few blushes indeed." 
 
 " O !" cried I, seeing her stop again ; " keep your word — do not 
 sport with me, but go on." 
 
 " It is because I will not sport with you, that I am thus plain in 
 my recital. Miss Hastings, with all her vivacity, all her softness of 
 feeling, is, as I told you, no enthusiast. It is quite sufficient for you 
 that she seemed any thing but sorry for the news I gave her, and 
 allowed you were the man in the world whom from childhood she 
 had most esteemed." 
 
 "Delightful! Amiable Bertha!" cried I, and was going on, 
 when Lady Hungerford interrupted me. 
 
 "Be not loo soon elate," she added ; "for, notwithstanding 
 this, she would not allow her feelings to exceed their present tran- 
 quil state." 
 
 " Tranquil slate ! Are they then so tranquil?" 
 
 " They are, and ought (0 be 5 and if your own were so too, and 
 you had given me time to finish, I would have added — until the 
 whole matter was laid before her father ; and if he did not oppose, 
 she would then — " 
 
 "Ah!— what?" 
 
 " Consider." 
 
 " O Heavens ! — consider ! What, no more? — not, even with her 
 father's consent, more than consider?" 
 
 "And enough, too. Surely you could not expect her even to 
 consider whelher she should accept an offer or not, before she 
 knew her father's opinion?" 
 
 " True ! true ! I had forgot that." 
 
 " Well, then, I think I have, upon the whole, done you emi- 
 nent service, and you will not only forgive, but feel obliged to me. 
 Be assured I have, since last night, brought you a mile nearer to 
 your object than you would have brought yourself in the next 
 twelve months ; and you may thank my own situation — about to 
 leave both you and Bertha for a long and indefinite time (you ir- 
 resolute 5 Bertha ignorant 5 both of you without a common friend)— 
 for prompting me to so critical a proceeding." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN- 305 
 
 It may be supposed how gratefully I expressed myself for this 
 kindness, as well as how full of admiration I was at such energy. 
 Certainly, this exquisite woman was, in both, the wonder of her 
 sex. 
 
 «f Now one thing more," added she, " before we break up this 
 conference. There must be no disguises, no acting of parts, be- 
 tween you hereafter. She indeed is above it, and you too, but for 
 what I cannot altogether blame, a sense of old inferiority, which, 
 though only worldly, does not any longer even exist. You now 
 know each other's position. She — that you love, and seek per- 
 mission to woo her 5 you — that she at least esteems you more than 
 other men. I will not conceal from you that, if her father is favour- 
 able, I look for this esteem as likely to ripen into somelhing much 
 warmer, nay, as warm as you can wish; but you must have pa- 
 tience, for the contrary may ruin you." 
 
 How did my heart leap at this ! But could I help asking if she 
 had any particular reason for it? 
 
 " None, be assured," said she, " except from common observa- 
 tion ; so do not (odd compound as you are of sanguineness and fear 
 —of confidence and despair) imagine that any thing specific has 
 passed between us. My surmise is the result of mere ordinary pe- 
 netration; forno unsophisticated young woman would have given that 
 consequence which her changed behaviour to you intimated last 
 evening, upon the incident of the verses, unless something more 
 than common played round her heart. But we loiter here, when 
 we have but a few hours left, which ought to be given to action. 
 By we, I mean Mr. Granville as well as myself; I believe he is at 
 this moment with his uncle, watching opportunity 5 for I own the 
 only thing wanting to my own happiness is to leave that of two per- 
 sons whom I so much regard, in a way to be realized. So, for a 
 time, farewell. No thanks, for I cannot slay to receive them." 
 
 At this she flew off, leaving me in Bertha's hermitage, which ap- 
 peared now, more than ever, the temple of purity and love. Here 
 my heart and mind felt in a wilderness of thought and feeling, from 
 which I did not, for a very long time, awaken. 
 
 When I did, I staggered towards the house, when I met Gran- 
 ville, who was coming in quest of me. He instantly seized my arm, 
 and hurrying me into that walk in which, remarkably, near three 
 years before, he had so emphatically urged the necessity for my re- 
 nouncing all my feelings for Bertha, he there congratulated me on 
 the prospect which he said he thought had now opened in my 
 favour. 
 
 " Both Honora and I," said he, " have been at work for you. 
 I know what has passed between you, and that she acquainted you 
 with the critical importance which might result from the interview 
 H. 20 
 
306 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 I have just had with my uncle. Noi to torture you, therefore, with 
 suspense. I think I may say it has been decidedly favourable, and at 
 once give you joy." • 
 
 At these words the dear fellow flew into my arms, as I did 
 into his, and to relieve my impatience he proceeded at once in his 
 story. 
 
 " Honora,*" said he, 4i informed you that I had gone to Mr. Hast- 
 ings' apartment to watch an opportunity. I did not do so long, for 
 he almost immediately made one. ■ Sit near me, nephew, 1 said he. 
 • and talk to me of your approaching happiness. You have ever 
 been a son to me. and more than a son." At this he sighed deeply, 
 and added, 1 how extraordinary — perhaps, I may say, how cruel — 
 my fate, that I should meet with more care and consolation from 
 you, more distant from me in blood, and even from another with 
 whom I have no connection at all, than from him who is gone, 
 though my own flesh and blood ! ! 
 
 By another, you mean Mr. Clifford, dear Sir," said I, " and 
 1 believe you judge rightly of his attachment to you. 4 Tis a 
 little hard," observed he, ; that he, too, must leave me as well as 
 you, and at the same lime as you and dear Lady Hungerford. As 
 for me, I shall never see any of you again, and we may as well 
 pari now. in a less mournful manner, as six months hence. But 
 what poor Bertha is to do without her friend, the only one she has 
 loved, or allowed herself to love, in the world, is a bitter thought 
 to me. I now perceive how wrong, how selfish— how very selfish 
 I have been, in agreeing to allow her (for it was her own determi- 
 nation, against my better judgment) to immure herself here, in 
 watching the decline of a useless old man. She has not the place 
 that belongs to her in the world, and has laid no ground for it after 
 I am gone. Yet your dear Honora, who was the sister of her in- 
 fancy, and the friend of her youth, as it ripened, will, I know, not 
 abandon her ; but you will be abroad when I am called.' 
 
 " Here the old man let fall some anxious tears, which much af- 
 fected me. I endeavoured to console him. but without much suc- 
 cess. ' I have considered the matter,' said he, 'in all its points. 
 God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and my child will, I dare 
 say. not want for friends ; and, though our rays are diminished, she 
 is still an heiress, and will not want for fortune; but, on account 
 of that very fortune, she may the more want protection ; and, above 
 all, her heart will want a partner, for it is a social heart. 1 
 
 " Here again my good uncle was a little overcome. 1 Hitherto," 
 continued he, 4 1 have, strange to say, appeared to fill that heart ; 
 at least the only one to share it with me was she who has given hers 
 to you. No one who has addressed her ever succeeded in impress- 
 ing it ; and here, again, I am bowed down with self-blame for hav- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 307 
 
 ing harassed her with that long engagement, which has only just 
 left her free. It is not that any of those who courted her could have 
 made her happy, except, perhaps, poor, lost Melford, had he turned 
 out differently 5 but the engagement was a bar to all, and she vo- 
 luntarily lived the life of a nun. All this makes me feel our ap- 
 proaching separation the more, and will embitter my final depar- 
 ture ten-fold. To-morrow — to you a day of rejoicing — will to us 
 be one of mourning ; and not the less, because the day after will 
 take from us one whom, from the generous attachment he has 
 shewn to our honour, and the interest which he in every thing 
 seems to take in us, we appreciate as he deserves. I shall greatly 
 miss him myself; but when Bertha has lost her chaperon and you, 
 I see nothow, with propriety, I canask so young apersonto prolong 
 his visit, where she will, of necessity , be almost his only companion.' 
 
 44 I was meditating what answer to make to this (which indeed 
 was not easy), when, to my surprise, and pleasure loo, he went 
 on, as if it had suddenly struck him, 4 Ay ; if he, or such a one as 
 he, had been among those who addressed her during the engage- 
 ment with her cousin, what a relief would it have been, now it is 
 over, to all those fears and anxieties I have been expressing to you.' 
 
 44 1 felt, as I have said, surprised, nay, astonished at this. What 
 I had been with so much eagerness and care endeavouring to bring 
 about, exhausting all my forethought and ingenuity to provide 
 against the difficulties that seemed to surround it, appeared here 
 almost settled to my hand, and only to require a word of explana- 
 tion to complete it. But, my good friend," added Granville, 
 
 seeing me here much agitated, 44 if you cannot bear this commu- 
 nication belter, we must stop, or adjourn to yonder bench, or you 
 will certainly be down. You are pale and red, by turns, and seem 
 to have lost your breath — if you are going to lose your senses too, 
 pray give me notice, for it will spare me the rest of my tale. 1 ' 
 
 44 O! Granville," said I, u spare raillery 5 this is not a mailer 
 for wit— for heaven's love, go on." 
 
 44 Can you bear it ?" asked he, and made as if he would feel my 
 pulse. 44 Come, pretly calm again. Well, then, to proceed: — I 
 almost doubted whether I had understood Mr. Hastings to mean 
 seriously what his words implied 5 to ascertain it I actually observed 
 (forgive me for it) — 4 With all my esteem and love for Mr. Clifford, 
 I never could have supposed this, knowing that, though he is a 
 gentleman both in birth and education, his family have been so 
 reduced as to be in a very moderate condition.' 
 
 4 4 4 1 care not for their condition,' replied he, with some quick- 
 ness 5 4 they are all of them Normans 5 he is himself now owner of 
 the identical castle of his ancestors, the ancient barons 5 and my 
 creed, you know, is ? that the blood of a gentleman can never be 
 
308 
 
 1)15 CLIFFORD ; 
 
 washed out. But, far beyond this, he has given proofs of the noble- 
 ness of his nature, as well as of his family, in his generous devotion 
 of himself towards us, spite, not only of appalling danger, but of 
 affronting and ungrateful slights on our parts. In this loo he seemed 
 the instrument of the vengeance of heaven upon the murderer of 
 my poor boy. But why waste words upon this part of the subject ? 
 The question will never arise. I see no signs of it on either side. 
 The wanderings of a youth in a delirium from a fever were nothing, 
 and ought not to have been noticed. What I admire in him is, his 
 gratuitous attention to us since, and the gallant hazard he ran in 
 defence of our good name, without any other possible motive than 
 a generous desire to vindicate our honour. No, no. It will be lime 
 enough to talk of objections, when something more appears than 
 the mere friendliness of childhood, which is renewed between him 
 and Bertha.' 
 
 44 4 Uncle,' said I, L will you let me express an opinion upon this?' 
 
 44 4 Willingly, my dear nephew,' replied he. 
 
 44 4 Then forgive me, if I think differently from you, and with 
 good ground, in regard to his feelings towards Bertha. Shall I even 
 confess to you that I know that for years, nay, from the first mo- 
 ment he saw her, his heart has been entirely hers, with a devotion 
 almost without example 5 lhathe did all he could to overcome it, from 
 his sense of its hopelessness on account of his inferiority •, but that 
 it haunted him day and night, sleeping and waking, and he nursed 
 it in secret till it became part of himself ; and though he breathed 
 not a syllable of it to my cousin, nor to me, till I delected it myself, 
 he cherished it in humble distance, resolving, he said, that it 
 should descend with him to the grave, without it's ever being 
 known to her, or to you?' 
 
 44 4 Quite like himself, and most like a gentleman,' said my un- 
 cle, though with a look of astonishment. 4 But go on. With such 
 a resolution, why did he trust himself here?' 
 
 44 6 His worldly situation is much changed,' answered I. 
 
 44 6 Ha ! ' exclaimed Mr. Hastings ; 4 what am I to understand by 
 that? Has he addressed Bertha ? ' 
 
 44 He said this with agitation. 4 No?' replied I, quickly, 4 or 
 
 you would have in the instant known it from her, as soon as she 
 knew it herself, but from him before ; for, much as he loved her, 
 he never would have even told his love without your previous ap- 
 probation.' 
 
 41 4 That alters the case,' observed Mr. Hastings, still in a sort of 
 confusion from surprise ; 4 but how is it then that neither of us 
 have known any thing of it?' 
 
 4 4 4 From the same modesty/ answered I, 4 which he felt in hum- 
 bler circumstances, and which has not yet abandoned him. I know 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 309 
 
 that up to yesterday he was in misery, from doubt of the event 5 and 
 even talked of accompanying me to Germany, in despair both of 
 her affection and your consent.' 
 
 44 4 If he can gain her affection,' replied my uncle, after a little 
 thought, 4 I know not why he should despair of my consent.' 
 
 " He said this with an air of dignified decision, as if he had 
 measured all your pretension with his own, and, only after the 
 consideration due to his own, had decided in your favour. I must, 
 however, do the dear old man the justice to say that he added, 
 4 Tis true, Bertha is no longer the rich heiress she was, such being 
 the will of Providence, 44 the wi«d and storm fulfilling his word V 
 But as, if she were poorer than she will be, I am sure this would 
 make no difference in him ; so, were she richer than she is, it 
 would make none in me.' 
 
 " I sincerely complimented him upon this honourable sentiment." 
 
 4 4 And what must I do? my dear Granville," cried I, no longer 
 able to keep silence. "How admire or thank him enough? O! that 
 some favourable aspect may appear in the other horizon, which I 
 begin verily almost to believe may be, under the auspices of that 
 incomparable woman, who, like yourself, seems born to be my 
 tutelary deity. How can I ever thank you, my true friend, for all 
 you have told me?" 
 
 44 Still there is much to do," observed Granville. 
 
 44 Which it makes my heart tremble to think of," said I. 44 Pray 
 did Mr. Hastings suggest nothing in regard to my proceedings?" 
 
 44 Nothing; except that he was so pleased with your honourable 
 intentions, of first apprizing him of your views before you addressed 
 his daughter, that he gives you carte blanche to act as you please, 
 determining, in the mean time, in order to leave you a fair field, as 
 he thinks would be most agreeable to you, not to interpose with 
 either persuasion or advice. Can you wish for more?" • 
 
 44 O, no! If to be a messenger of good tidings is to be one, you 
 are an absolute evangelist. Again, how shall I thank you?" 
 
 4 By letting me see you as happy as myself." 
 
 44 God send it!" 
 
 1 Evidently alluding to the hurricane. 
 
310 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 OF THE NOBLE CAHD0UR DISPLAYED BY BERTHA. — FRIENDSHIP AMD GOOD OFFICES 
 OF LADY HUNGERFORD. 
 
 0 If it were now to die, 
 T were now to be most happy ; for I fear 
 My soul hath her content so absolute, 
 That not another comfort like to this 
 Succeeds in unknown fate. 
 
 Shakspeare.— Othelte. 
 
 The information from Granville with which I concluded the last 
 chapter made, as may be supposed, a considerable change for the 
 better in all my prospects. Furnished with such armour of proof as 
 the favourable disposition of Mr. Hastings, I gave way with more 
 confidence to the delight inspired by Lady Hungerford's assurances. 
 
 Yet I felt bewildered, and knew not exactly how to proceed. At 
 first I was for instantly seeking a personal interview with Bertha ; 
 then, thinking that too confident, for sending to ask permission for 
 an audience in form ; then, to address her through Lady Hungerford, 
 whom I would entreat to be my medialFix ; then through her father 
 himself. But I could determine finally upon none of these plans, 
 and suffered not a little raillery from Lady Hungerford, who, how- 
 ever, consoled me by saying she liked me the belter for it. 
 
 " I would not care half so much," said she, u for the success of 
 your object, if I saw you setting methodically about it, as a matter 
 of business, or even with the dignity and self-possession of an ex- 
 perienced great man of the world. Your tremors and indecision are 
 quite taking, and I would not help you, if I could, to get rid of them 5 
 except, indeed, that, as I am to leave you all to-morrow, it would 
 be more pleasant to leave you comfortable. Indeed, anxiety about 
 my dearest Bertha is the only alloy I feel to my own happiness.". 
 
 Then seeing that I was still in a confusion of plans, the kind lady 
 said — 
 
 44 Well, I perceive you scholars and fine-minded people are but 
 children after all, where a love affair is concerned. Why, a French 
 marquis, or even an English militia captain, would beat you all to 
 nothing were the case theirs ; and I think I must continue to be the 
 patroness you used to do me the honour to call me, and so far 
 smoolhe the way, as to communicate to your queen, what she ought 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. Dil 
 
 m the first instance lo know — the result of Mr. Granville's con- 
 ference with his uncle this morning." 
 
 This greatly relieved me, and my face I suppose shewed it, for 
 she said — 
 
 "There, now the sun shines again! I have but an hour more 
 of the morning for my own affairs, but I will give half of it lo 
 yours." 
 
 So saying, she left me, but before she tript quite away, advised 
 me not by any means lo part with my anxious look, but go and walk 
 underBertha's window, with my arms folded across, my hat slouched 
 over my eyes- "and be sure," said she, "to sigh like furnace." 
 Her cheerful tone did me all the good possible, and I thanked my 
 stars for having given me such a friend. 
 
 Her half hour, however, lengthened into a whole one, and indeed 
 seemed so unbearably long, that I was tempted loobey her last piece 
 of advice lo the letter, and found myself actually under the window 
 pointed out, almost in the very predicament recommended ; only it 
 would have been in vain, for there was no one above to behold it. 
 
 In time she came back, with a busy seriousness, though not a 
 sorrowful one, in her eye, and taking me with her along the ter- 
 race, said kindly and encouragingly — 
 
 " I have been long, for such explanations cannot be made in the 
 twinkling of an eye, and a young lady cannot be expected to yield 
 herself up to a young gentleman on a summons being sent her by 
 a neutral power. Not however to frighlen you, for I see you are 
 already alarmed, I come lo conduct you to Bertha, and to tell you 
 
 she is too good a daughter not to obey her father. No raptures, 
 
 but let quiet be the order of the day, for she is overcome with sur- 
 prise,, and in no mood to encounter a storm." 
 
 44 My dear, dear Madam — " cried I. 
 
 44 I tell you be quiet," said she, 44 and even silent, iP possible, 
 with Bertha herself, to whom I have promised to bring you." 
 
 44 Oh! tell me but where, that I may fly — 
 
 44 No! flying won't do, neither. You must proceed soberly with 
 me to the garden door of her father's room, where she is, and 
 which is luckily vacant just now for half an hour, he being driving 
 out with Mr. Granville, with whom he has business; and when 
 there, I shall leave you. Nay, if you tremble so, I will not answer 
 for your success." 
 
 I could augur nothing ill from such pleasantry, so accompanied 
 the dear lady round to the other side of Ihe house, and, through 
 the glass door, into the well-known room, where I found the long- 
 loved object of my vows. Certainly, as her friend had told me, she 
 seemed in no condition to encounter a storm; for she appeared 
 faint, agitated, and deeply pensive; and when we entered, moved 
 
312 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 not her head from the hand which supported it, her elbow leaning 
 on the end of the sofa where she was sitting. 
 
 Though her cheek was flushed, and her eyes averted, she had 
 stretched out the other hand on one of the cushions, and Lady Hun- 
 gerford perceiving it, placed it gently in mine,, and saying she 
 thought she could not do better than leave us by ourselves, fairly 
 quitted the room. 
 
 Oh, what a moment! after all I had gone through! and what 
 wonder if I scarcely possessed my mind any more than Bertha 
 herself, whose eyes continued to be covered by the hand on which 
 she leaned, though the other gladdened my very soul by returning 
 the pressure of mine. Nay, when dropping on one knee, I pressed 
 it to my lips, though there was a sort of struggle (a very gentle 
 one) to withdraw it, she did not altogether take it from me, but 
 allowed it still to remain. 
 
 At last, finding my tongue, which till now had denied its office, I 
 exclaimed, 
 
 "Oh, God of heaven ! is it possible that I can be thus repaid at 
 last, after years of devotion, torture, and despair? Is it possible 
 that Lady Hungerford's intelligence can be true, and that I am not 
 in a dream? If I am, let me never awake, nor again encounter the 
 misery and hopelessness of reality." 
 
 Bertha's only answer, at first, was by a more sensible pressure by 
 her hand-, but in a few moments I heard, in a still, soft whisper, the 
 words, 
 
 " No, Mr. De Clifford, as I must believe all I have been told of 
 my father's approbation, it is no dream; but (and her voice here 
 became softer and softer), as Lady Hungerford has no doubt told 
 you, you must not lake me away from him." 
 
 Then turning her glowing cheek (glowing with the purest blush 
 of modesty that ever love knew), and seeing me still on my knee, 
 she said with quickness, 
 
 " Oh! why is this? Surely this does not become Mr. De Clifford 
 to descend to, nor me to suffer. This must never — never be. Oh ! 
 rise — rise, I entreat you." 
 
 I obeyed; and taking my seat by her side, we fell, by degrees, 
 somewhat more at ease. To detail however, all that passed in this 
 delicious moment of unlooked-for happiness— of unreserved and 
 authorized confidence — is not only not necessary, but would be 
 impossible if it were. Suffice it, that my feelings were gratified to 
 their utmost power of bearing, by the dear and melting tidings 
 which, by degrees, she allowed me to elicit from her ; for I learned, 
 with what feelings may be imagined, that she had perceived my 
 love for her even in her girlhood, from the earliest moments of its 
 existence; had felt it with an interest only enhanced by seeing it 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 313 
 
 cherished so long in silence and distance, under fears and hope- 
 lessness, such as had always prevented its open profession ; that its 
 constancy under so many trials, but, in particular, under that great 
 one of supposed unkindness, had touched her heart with a sort of 
 remorse, which a sense of her engagement could alone dispel 5 but 
 that when the engagement was at an end, the warmth I had shewn 
 in her defence when attacked, and the appalling danger I had 
 encountered in asserting her cause, had weakened her self-control, 
 so that when she saw me once more under the paternal roof, pos- 
 sessing so much of her father's regard, and my cause espoused by 
 the friends she most loved in the world, she acknowledged that all 
 I wished was reciprocal. Finally, to my ineffable delight, she 
 wound up these confessions ( though I only gained them from her 
 after many intervals of pause and hesitation, which increased their 
 interest a hundred-fold) with a frank avowal, in the very words of 
 Portia — which had never been absent from her memory since she 
 heard them — that she willingly committed her gentle spirit to mine, 
 to be directed, 
 
 " As from her lord, her governor, and king." 
 
 Let those who, like me, have loved to desperation, imagine, if 
 they can, the effect of this thrilling confession on the ears that heard, 
 and the heart that felt it. Language in vain attempts to describe it, 
 and sinks in the endeavour. All that can be said is, that the sweet 
 character of this delightful creature was arrayed in its own peculiar 
 lustre, and that openness, softness, delicacy, and affection (now not 
 only not opposed, but enceuraged to develop themselves), shone 
 out in all their purity, and all their attraction. 
 
 Their effect upon my faculties, which had so long been oppressed 
 with doubt and uncertainty — the sport of every whisper, and 
 almost every look,' — was miraculous. My powers were suddenly 
 strengthened, as by a potent spell or vivifying cordial, and I felt 
 that not that nepenthe, given in Egypt by the wife of Thone to 
 Jove-born Helena, 
 
 " Was of such power to stir up joy as this." 
 
 I will not say that this was the happiest moment of my life, be- 
 cause tumultuous happiness yields in real joy to that which is more 
 sedate, and, thanks to heaven and this inestimable person, I have 
 had many moments with her since, more tranquil, yet far more 
 precious in their effect upon the heart. But never had her beauty, 
 set off with the maiden blush of modesty, appeared to my charmed 
 eyes half so engaging. Had I, therefore, been conqueror of the 
 world, I could not have felt more elate \ and at a loss to thank her, 
 
314 DE CLIFFORD} 
 
 spite of her prohibition, I threw myself again at her feet, and in- 
 voked the blessing of heaven upon her dear head, for the goodness 
 and noble frankness she had shewn. 
 
 How long we might have remained in this delirium ( for it was 
 little less) I don't know, but it was put an end to by the return of 
 Lady Hungerford, who, seeing how things were, fondly kissed her 
 young friend, and shaking hands with me, congratulated herself 
 upon having produced such a happy slate of things, the consumma- 
 tion of which, by being ratified by Mr. Hastings, was all, she said, 
 that was now wanting. 
 
 This, we hoped, was now at hand, by the return of the carriage 
 in which Granville had driven his uncle for an airing. Bertha was 
 confused, and trembled at the approach of her father ; and Lady 
 Hungerford proposed her retiring to her chamber to regain a little 
 calm, in which she acquiesced : and as Mr. Hastings generally re- 
 posed for half an hour by himself after reluming from his drive, we 
 all retreated from his apartment to leave it free. 
 
 Meantime this best of friends, with her usual presence of mind, 
 planned with Granville the mode of communicating what had passed 
 to Mr. Hastings, on his awakening from his usual noontide doze. 
 
 Wilh what restlessness did I not watch the progress of it— how I 
 wished old people were not invalids 5 or if they were, and were 
 forced to sleep in the daytime, that they would not sleep so long. 
 
 It was just an hour after Mr. Hastings took to his couch before 
 he awoke from his refreshing slumber, and called for his daughter, 
 instead of whom Granville presented himself. Meantime I had not 
 known how to beguile the interval. Lady Hungerford was once 
 more shut up with her dear pupil, and Granville was most pro- 
 vokingly absorbed in marriage papers, which had to be inspected 
 and signed before the next morning. I was therefore left entirely 
 to myself, to indulge my hopes in soliloquy, or whisper my fears to 
 the oaks and beeches of the park. 
 
 But, thanks to my happy fortunes, there was no occasion for 
 fear. Mr. Hastings' waking was one of the mollia tempora fandi, 
 which Granville, wilh his usual kindness and usual promptitude, 
 seized, and, as he frankly said, with little, or rather no difficulty, 
 profiled by it so effectually, that an hour afterwards beheld .both 
 Bertha and myself on our knees, kissing the hands of her father, 
 and asking and receiving his blessing, and as free and full consent 
 to our union as my own or Bertha's dutiful heart could wish. 
 
 And here, having brought the more changeful parts of my life, 
 though yet in its early days, to a termination, I might close these 
 memoirs. For though eventful to me, and amply confirming all 
 the maxims regarding human life which I had imbibed from my 
 sage and practised preceptors, Fothergill, Manners, and Lord Cas- 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 315 
 
 tleton, few incidents remain which might particularly interest the 
 reader. I cannot, however, conclude without noticing the con- 
 summation of the happiness of my two admirable friends, to whom 
 I owe the chief blessing of my life, in her who gilded its dawn, its 
 meridian, and its sunset. 
 
 I wish also to add to these notices, one which, for the sake of the 
 moral it affords, if not for the intrinsic interest it contains, may be 
 deemed not an unimportant feature in perhaps the most important 
 of all sciences, the science of Human Nature. 
 
 CHAPTER XU. 
 
 OF THE VAIN EFFORTS TO RECOVER FROM THE EFFECTS OF VICE WHEN MADE TOO 
 LATE.*— AFFECTING CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORY OF SIR HARRY MELFORD. 
 
 Try what repentance can. What can it not? 
 Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? 
 
 Sharspeare.— Hamlet. 
 
 The allusion made at the end of the last chapter was to Sir Harry 
 Melford, a man who, whether from his original disposition to value 
 the decencies, if not the virtues of life, or the accomplishments of 
 his mind and manners, was certainly made for better fortune than 
 befel him. 
 
 Our last mention of him was at a dinner at Granville's in town, 
 where he shewed a humour and perversion of principle, which made 
 it little likely that he should so soon, or at all, exhibit such feelings 
 as the letter I am about to transcribe evinces. It was received by 
 Granville only the day before his nuptials, and was written to him 
 in consequence of the expectation of them, which was spread all 
 over Yorkshire. 
 
 I had observed the arrival of the packet, and that it instantly 
 occasioned a seriousness both in Granville and Lady Hungerford. 
 They were closeted upon it for near an hour, and afterwards, to 
 my great wonder, with Bertha. For, happy as I was, I was still 
 sensitive, and dreaded some announcement respecting the prince, 
 or perhaps a new suitor. The conference, too, lasted long, nor was 
 1 relieved by seeing that the two ladies were considerably affected. 
 I was, however, restored by being allowed to read the packet, 
 which was as follows : — 
 
316 
 
 DE CLIFFORD; 
 
 " Melford Hall, iOth August, 17—. 
 
 " My dear friend, 
 
 " I have heard with unfeigned pleasure, but I must add, not 
 without envy, the accounts of your approaching nuptials with 
 perhaps the most admired lady in Europe. I felt the pleasure on 
 your account— the envy on my own. Alas ! Granville, when we 
 set out in life, which we did almost together, who would have 
 thought (and what but my own accursed folly could have effected 
 it), that in ten years lime, before youth had quite departed, our 
 lots should be so differently cast? When we started, I had the 
 advantage at least in point of fortune, and was equal to you in 
 connection, perhaps I might say in personal, though certainly not 
 in mental accomplishments. ' 
 
 "Where are we now? You, covered with honours, the fruit 
 of merit and character, and crowned with all the felicity which 
 pure and virluous love can produce ; I — but I fear to enter upon 
 the terrible subject, though I have so long planned it, longed for 
 it, and only waited for the occasion of your marriage, to execute 
 my design. It would be a relief, I thought, to my half-broken heart, 
 to open it to you 5 yet now the time is come, I shrink from it with 
 a fear and irresolution of which I am ashamed. But, whatever it 
 cost, I will proceed. 
 
 " That evil genius of mine, Hortense — the scene you found me 
 in with her at Wetherby, near two years ago, has scarce ever been 
 out of my mind since. Oh ! how different from that to which you 
 were sent to invite me 1 5 and what a contrast that wretched woman, 
 to the angel who would have been ready to have received me, had 
 my sense of my own unworthiness allowed me to accept the invi- 
 tation. No 5 so far I had grace, that I could not— dared not insult 
 the pure presence of that lovely being, by rushing into it, reeking 
 from one who was her total opposite. Nor, though another wretch 
 has since been born to reproach me, and prove the shame of bolh 
 parents, has it in the least altered my disgust both at myself and its 
 mother. 
 
 "Although, therefore, when I dined with you some time ago, 
 wine, and fear, and shame, made me play the bully, in affronting 
 all that good taste, as much as good morals, holds sacred, I too 
 deeply felt, and have since too keenly remembered, the affecting 
 contrast which Brownlow (another happy man) drew between a 
 wife and a mistress, and how severely to myself he proved that 
 Hortense was nothing but a : no ; I cannot write the word \ 
 
 ' See Vol. II. p. 125. 
 
 * See the conversation at Granville's dinner, Vol. II. p. 131 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 317 
 
 " Alas! my misfortune is, that to that mother of my children, 
 from I know not what cause, I feel in such cowardly subservience, 
 that I in vain plan an endeavour to get free. Oh! that you, or 
 Brownlow, or both conjoined, could help me, and redeem mo 
 from a curse more heavy than Cain's, of being exiled from all that 
 I once prized, and still would recover, if I could — the conversation 
 and esteem of virtuous society. Say what we will, and however 
 education, from our earliest years, may corrupt us, or example 
 palliate the mischief, the loss of this, till we are absolutely cankered ! 
 and rotten in mind, can never but be lamented with unbearable 
 agony, and as I am not yet so cankered, I own to you all my 
 misery. 
 
 "Wonder not at my talking of corruption from our earliest 
 years \ for what education does not promote, instead of resisting 
 it? What school-boy, but above all, what collegian, is not taught 
 by his own passions, and the force of example in all around him, 
 to make light of that virtue which interferes with his pleasures, 
 whether of women, wine, or gaming — or if it only restrain one 
 particle of his liberty, though for the sake of wholesome disci- 
 pline *? Who, however young, does not place his point of honour 
 in being a man, in vice, before his time? To be libertine, extrava- 
 gant, sensual, immodest, beyond others, is to be manly, bold, 
 prosperous, and the envy of his fellows. 
 
 " Is there any thing in his studies, or what his tutors daily exact 
 from him, to repress this? Is there a single moral or religious 
 precept taught him, or a single moral or religious book put into 
 his hands, after he has left nursery? No. All the licentious con- 
 trary. The vehicles of his learning are all of them panders to vice, 
 by rendering his imagination prurient under the pretence of po- 
 lishing it. 
 
 "He cannot be a scholar without Latin and Greek; and he 
 cannot have Latin and Greek except through the medium of Virgil, 
 Ovid, Horace, Homer, and Anacreon. I do not deny the impor- 
 tance of these as masters of song 5 but their effect upon the mind, 
 from the tales of debauchery which they contain, both of gods 
 and men, I need not point out to you. 
 
 " What wonder, then, if every school is a hotbed of self-indul- 
 gence, and, in respect to chastity, the destruction of all principle? 
 Hence our later years demand all our energies in the correction 
 ( and happy he who is not too far gone to succeed ) of the canker 
 and infection contracted in our younger. 
 
 " That I, having fallen, have not been able to recover myself as 
 others have, can never be sufficiently deplored; but it is this edu- 
 cation, supposed so liberal and so polished, that has ruined me. 
 
 1 See Foljambe Hastings' case, Vol. I. ch. 14, 
 
318 
 
 DE CUFFORD ; 
 
 "One chance I had for the reformation I sought, in attaching 
 myself to an angel of light : I failed, and fell back upon an angel 
 of darkness. When I was where you are now, I thought myself in 
 Eden ; but have long felt for ever expelled from that happy place, 
 guarded as it is against me by the flaming sword which protects 
 it from every thing impure. 
 
 "Oh! miserable, wretched mistake! — ineffable cowardice! — 
 weak and illiberal, as ruinous pique ! which made me think the loss 
 of Heaven could be compensated by an alliance with hell ! It is not 
 that Hortense is grossly wicked, or abandoned in every thing. She 
 is even a good mother to her children, though indifferent to their 
 father • especially since I have refused the great, and I believe, only 
 object she had in view when she gave herself to me — marriage. To 
 gratify her in this would both stultify and disgrace myself-, yet to 
 continue in this slate is more disgraceful, and renders my return to 
 society impossible, if I ever could return to it with the credit, 
 without which perpetual banishment would be preferable. Mise- 
 rable, deplorable, irremediable alternative ! 
 
 " I have offered her largely to induce her to quit me; but she 
 goes into fits (sometimes of dudgeon, and sometimes, what is worse, 
 of tenderness ) at the thought. Were it only a question of terms, I 
 would arrange it, though it cost half my fortune ; but unless she 
 met some one as weak and as rich as myself to engage her, it is 
 easy to see she would perpetually persecute me. 
 
 "Then, again, the children ! If I leave them to her, I consign 
 them to infamy, probably to ruin, especially the girl. If I retain 
 them myself, what are they but living reproaches and monuments 
 of folly, to call it nothing else? 
 
 " O Granville! could your blessed cousin witness my remorse, 
 my misery, my sense of shame, she would pity and forgive me. I 
 say forgive ; for it is against her I have sinned. What was it but 
 sin to think I could console myself for her rejection in the arms of 
 
 a but I again check myself. How dearly I have paid for the 
 
 mistake, and how deeply every word that Brownlow spoke upon the 
 subject has told upon my heart, this letter will demonstrate. 
 
 " Comfort, counsel me^ dear Granville. I dare not ask to be pre- 
 sented to your matchless lady, still less to be endured again at Fol- 
 jambe Park • for they are all like the Jasmins of Jesse, so feelingly 
 quoted by Brownlow; they all seem to tell me, 'We are spotless, 
 we are pure f while I must either hide myself from the world, or 
 course through it with a mark set upon me to be shunned. 
 
 " Yet am I but thirty years old, and thus thrown away upon a 
 dunghill, instead of being, like you, blessed with reputation, and 
 thrice blessed in the love of that superior person, to whom, if I 
 dared, I would beg you to offer my respects. " H. M." 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 319 
 
 This affecting letter, as Granville told me, drew tears from the 
 eyes of the person last mentioned in it, as indeed it did from his 
 own. Lady Hungerford, while she lamented the wreck, as she called 
 it, of such a mind, desired instantly to plan something towards its 
 recovery, and for that purpose decided that the first step should be 
 to separate him from the dangerous Hortense § next, to promise 
 every facility to his return to his place in society, by herself giving 
 him her countenance, and receiving his visits as formerly. Nay, 
 she even went so far as to plan his reception once more, if he chose 
 it, at Foljambe, and, for this purpose, proposed communicating 
 the letter to Bertha, 
 
 u Poor girl !" said she 5 u she will see herself, in some measure, a 
 parly concerned ; and having, though most unintentionally, through 
 his despair, driven him from the paths of virtue, she ought, and 
 will, I have no doubt, do what she can to smooth his return to it." 
 
 Granville, after some hesitation, from a fear of exposing his 
 friend, withdrew his objection to the measure so far, that the pur- 
 port of the letter, though not actually the letter itself, should be 
 laid before Bertha and Mr. Hastings, who both gave Lady Hunger- 
 ford all the assurances she anticipated, of their desire to second her 
 benevolent object. But the letter itself, and the discussion which it 
 prompted, excited much feeling, and many reminiscences, and 
 hence the effect which, as I have related, so surprised and so inte- 
 rested me in the demeanour and countenance of both Bertha and 
 Lady Hungerford. 
 
 I wish I could conclude this episode with satisfaction ; but this 
 the event forbids. Granville, after he got stationary, communicated 
 to Sir Harry all the good wishes of both his old friends, and their 
 readiness to allow him to renew his former habits with them. He 
 was penetrated, and deeply grateful, but said he dared not profit by 
 it while his entanglement with Hortense continued. He would not 
 shock them, he said, by bringing his unworthy person into their 
 presence. 
 
 Meantime, all Granville's endeavours to procure the separation so 
 much desired between him and his mistress failed. An immense 
 settlement did not tempt her; she was about to make him a third 
 time a father, and perceived by its effect upon him what advantage 
 it gave her towards her object. In short, to use his own emphatic 
 words, it plunged him deeper and deeper in the filth of his situa- 
 tion, by clogging more and more his attempts to extricate himself 
 from it-, so that the morals of English society (after all that has been 
 said of our corruptions) not permitting a man with his inconve- 
 nient feelings of propriety to shew himself here, he fairly renounced 
 his country, and all his brilliant advantages in it, and settled him- 
 self at Paris. 
 
320 
 
 DE CLIFFORD 5 
 
 There, a complete alien, he found himself without power to turn 
 either his talents or fortune to account abroad, or to obtain peace 
 or comfort from his ill-selected companion at home. On the con- 
 trary, his pledges of guilty intercourse (for he would not call it 
 pleasure) increasing, he for their sakes consented, at forty, to marry 
 Horlense, who was as old as himself, then deprived of all personal 
 attractions, and wholly without power to compensate the loss by 
 any mental endowments. 
 
 Their life, therefore, may be imagined. Every thing like attach- 
 ment having long been over — he despising her, and she never hav- 
 ing loved him — their union was a perpetual bickering, and she 
 would now have gladly consented to a separation, provided he 
 would have allowed the children to follow her, which he refused. 
 
 But even these, whose education and welfare were the only in- 
 terests he had left, failed to give him what he thought, as a father, 
 he had a right to expect. Not because they had any particular faults 
 of character 5 on the contrary, they were amiable ; but unfortu- 
 nately, this very circumstance made his regrets more poignant. 
 " They are bastards,*' said he, " and not presentable in the world ; 
 they are not even pledges of love, and therefore give no pleasure at 
 home ; their very merits reproach me the more, for having deprived 
 them of their natural rights." 
 
 In this state of mortification he dragged on many years, after 
 being delivered by death from the millstone which had sunk him. 
 But his estates being entailed, he could make no provision for his 
 numerous progeny, except by savings, which he pushed to such 
 an extreme of parsimony, that only with the character of a miser, 
 and a sordid exterior, this once gay, liberal, and accomplished man 
 returned to the hall of his ancestors, where, from long absence, and 
 his misspent life, he found nothing in the respect of friends or neigh- 
 bours to welcome him home, and looked in vain to the approbation 
 of his own conscience to cheer and console him in his age. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 321 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 A WEDDING-DAY UNLIKE ALL OTHER WEDDING-DAYS TO BE FOUND IN ROMANCES ; 
 HAVING NO SHEW, THOUGH MUCH HAPPINESS.'— SWEET CONSCIOUSNESS SHEWN BY 
 BERTHA. 
 
 The wedding, mannerly modest. 
 Shakspeare.— Much Ado about Nothing. 
 
 I have mark'd 
 A thousand blushing apparitions 
 To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames, 
 In angel whiteness bear away those blushes. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 ■ 
 
 The chronology of facts as they arose, and the importance of the 
 catastrophe of Sir Harry Melford, alone induced me to interrupt 
 the chain of cheerful and happy events which now occupy these 
 memoirs. I with pleasure return, to record the ceremony which 
 united Granville and Lady Hungerford. 
 
 From the taste and temper of the parties, and Mr. Hastings' in- 
 firm stale of health, the wedding and wedding-day of the beloved 
 friends passed rather in happy calm than mirthful exaltation. 
 Though the pattern of elegance and queen of fashion, as I have often 
 called her, Lady Hungerford was attired at the ceremony in the 
 simplicity almost of a village maiden. No pompous ornaments ; no 
 laced veils flowing from head to foot, and enveloping her graceful 
 limbs ; not even one of her dazzling jewelled bracelets, to outshine 
 and put out of countenance the modest wedding ring, which Gran- 
 ville placed upon her finger, A gown of plain white silk, and a flower 
 in her dark glossy hair, were all the display she chose to make. 
 Her maid, Mrs. Barbara, was by far the most distinguished figure 
 of the two 5 as (to follow her example) the faithful Margaret was 
 superior to her young mistress, who, as bride's-maid, was arrayed 
 in equal simplicity with her friend. 
 
 But exclusive of the temper of mind in which those most con- 
 cerned found themselves, there were no great family feelings or 
 prospects aroused by the event. Granville was no rich heir, to call 
 upon an extended tenantry or neighbourhood of friends to compli- 
 ment him with joy and jollity on his entering on his new estate 5 
 and his accomplished and noble wife had been too much used to 
 pomp and festivity not to wish to give play to her natural taste and 
 disposition, which, without hating or despising grandeur, were 
 made for something better. She therefore, with her whole' heart, 
 11. 21 
 
322 
 
 DE CLIFFORD } 
 
 preferred the quiet but sincere felicitations of her most beloved 
 friend and her honourable father, to any exuberant display that 
 could be made in compliment to her nuptials. She, however, her- 
 self made up for the want of stir and excitement in the adjoining 
 hamlets, by a handsome gift of money, to be distributed to the 
 poorer classes at the discretion of Bertha ; and but for the joy oc- 
 casioned by this, the church bells, and an ample dinner given by 
 Mr. Hastings to his household, no one could have divined that a 
 peeress had been married that morning to an ambassador of the 
 state. 
 
 Strange to say, part of the honey-moon was to be kept in Ber- 
 keley Square, owing to the necessity for Granville's preparing for 
 his mission abroad, and they planned, on leaving the church door, 
 to pass some days on the road, in seeing the Dukeries, the wonders 
 of the peak, and the witchery of Warwick Castle. But the great 
 event which I have just recorded, involving so much of the future 
 happiness of one so dear to them both, altered (fortunately for us) 
 the whole of this plan of pleasure, which they generously gave up, 
 that Lady Hungerford might nol quit her friend when she most 
 wanted her. The consequence was, that four, or ought I not to say 
 five, happier people never were assembled than the Foljambe man- 
 sion saw under its roof during the week succeeding the nuptials. 
 
 It may be guessed how that week was passed by us all 5 but to me 
 the interests were intense, and not the less because it was then that 
 I learned from the lips of Bertha herself the whole of her story with 
 Prince Adolphus, and was allowed to peruse those interesting letters 
 which so well elucidated it. 
 
 An interest still greater was occasioned by Lady Hungerford. 
 For that pattern of a friend having, as she said, been so instru- 
 mental in producing the present state of things, declared she could 
 not leave her work incomplete, particularly as she was about to 
 leave us all, perhaps for years. She was, therefore, eager to see 
 things, so happily in train, brought to a still happier conclusion 5 
 and as she was all-powerful with Mr. Hastings, as well as with 
 Bertha, she did not scruple to propose, and urge to both, with all 
 her talents for persuasion, that a day should be named. 
 
 To this the only answer returned by Bertha was by blushes, 
 which Titian would have blessed his good fortune could he have 
 seen; and on the part of Mr. Hastings there was no delay desired 
 except what was in strict reason necessary from settlements, not 
 required, but offered. For as well from my own wishes, as to 
 shorten all delays, I made quick work of it, by desiring every thing 
 I possessed in the world, together with every thing that Bertha 
 might hereafter possess, might not only form her dower, but be 
 hers for ever. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 32*1 
 
 To this, the justice of Mr. Hastings made a large exception, in 
 regard to the estates of Bardolfe and the Grange, which he insisted 
 should be conveyed to my family in default of progeny. And thus 
 days and weeks were spared in this most important matter. 
 
 During the interval, I cannot describe the felicity, from their 
 pleasing employments, of every one of the inmates of Foljambe ; the 
 visions of happiness of the upper ranks, and the busy importance 
 of the lower, down to the lowest, especially the females. For, from 
 the looks and bustle of even the house and kitchen maids, not (o 
 mention the village laundresses, (who only felt a sort of reflected 
 consequence from the hall), you might delect that some event, of a 
 solemn and dignified character, affecting the peace and prosperity 
 of the whole of this little community, was in preparation. 
 
 Here the Mesdames Margaret and Barbara naturally look the 
 lead, and enterprises of great pith and moment, scilicet, certain 
 daily expeditions to the milliners and mercers at York, — for which 
 purpose, to their no small gratification, I lent them my post-chaise, 
 — engaged the whole force of their genius in the service of their 
 respective mistresses. 
 
 For my own part, the happy faces that surrounded me, the 
 pleasure of Mr. Hastings, shewn in a profusion of paternal caresses 
 to the darling and stay of his life, and the joy of our two admirable 
 friends, would have made my heart dilate with pleasure, had there 
 been no other cause for it. But Bertha! my long-loved, long- 
 despaired-of Bertha, now my betrothed as well as beloved ! how 
 can I tell the impressions of delight which the mere sight of her 
 speaking animation inspired? Oh! how did every look, every blush, 
 every little hesitating, yet always graceful^ movement speak to me! 
 She perhaps had not the striking maintien of her friend, though 
 the want of that (if it was wanting) was probably alone owing to 
 the circumstance of Lady Hungerford's greater prominence in the 
 world, and the retirement of her own life. But there was a winning 
 softness, and, above all, a consciousness, growing daily and hourly 
 more and more moving, that was absolutely bewitching. That 
 consciousness met me at every turn 5 in every look she gave, and 
 every one she endeavoured not to give ; — in the tones of her voice 
 when she spoke, and the timidity of her eye when she smiled. Oh ! 
 who can tell the charm of this ; or of a cheek, " rosied o'er, with 
 the virgin crimson of modesty?" 
 
 Possibly some of my readers, who have been in the same situation, 
 may know what I mean. No others can. For if you ransack the 
 whole history of the human heart, and every scene in which il has 
 shewn itself, you can never discover any thing so intensely, so 
 enchantingly inspiring as that modest consciousness I have men- 
 tioned. Hence, perhaps, (he most interesting sight in nature is, 
 
324 DE CLIFFORD j 
 
 when a young girl has first disclosed her secret to him whom she 
 has selected lo be the ruler of her destiny — the man of her choice 
 — possessing, and worthy of possessing, her love, and enjoying the 
 full approbation of her parents. 
 
 Such I had the proud delight of feeling was my situation with 
 Bertha, nor did I think it possible for mental enjoyment to be 
 carried farther. 
 
 Here then I stop : — for though the delicious life T afterwards led 
 with her, and the three angels which she gave me, exceeded by 
 far, in real happiness, the moments of excitement, still I am aware 
 of how little comparative interest it will possess for strangers, such 
 probably as those who may think it worth while to read these 
 memoirs. The race over, the enjoyment of the victory becomes 
 tame lo the spectators. I will therefore content myself with report- 
 ing, that in less than three weeks after the happiness of Granville 
 was secured with his estimable lady, my own was sealed with her 
 lovely pupil, under the auspices and blessing of Fothergill, who 
 came over from Oxford expressly for that purpose. 
 
 Mr. Hastings' health alone "prevented the fulfilment of his own 
 and his daughter's wish, that my excellent parents and honest 
 brothers should be present at the ceremony. But at Bertha's desire 
 we soon after paid them a visit of duty, in which, had they been still 
 among the nobility of England, she could not have shewn them 
 more deference or attention. My father shed tears, for the first time 
 in his life, at seeing the angel I had brought him. My 
 
 " Mother did not speak, 
 But she looked in my face, till my heart was like to break," 
 
 not certainly with grief. 
 
 It may, I hope, be imagined that I shared some of my pros- 
 perity with these worthy relations, who could scarcely be per- 
 suaded that the whole was not a dream, till our periodical visit to 
 the old castle, where the lodging fitted up by my revered bene- 
 factor, Manners, supplied comfortable accommodation, convinced 
 them that all was real. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 325 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 " O ! here 
 Will I set up my everlasting rest." 
 
 Shakspeare.— Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 The rites of the church being performed, and every the fondes t 
 wish of my heart fulfilled, I have, as I have said, no more interests 
 worth describing to set before the reader. Yet could I still consume 
 much time and paper, were I to pursue only part of my married 
 life 5 particularly if I adventured into the wide field of politics 
 which opened at this time, and in the course of a few short months 
 produced the most extraordinary changes, in not only Lord Cas- 
 tlelon's relinquishment of power, but his permanent return to it. 
 
 But the interest is sped which could alone engage me in this 
 task. I have too long been at anchor to look at storms without 
 uneasiness, even at a distance. I besides loo thoroughly renounced 
 ambition and the glare of public life, for love and the shades of 
 Foljambe Park, to plunge, though only in memory, into this sort 
 of recital. I will, therefore, content myself with relating how this 
 great change in my life was brought about, in which, I trust, I 
 have not hitherto so ill played my part, that the reader will feel 
 no interest in following me. 
 
 It may be supposed that Bertha, that 'great magnet which had 
 caused all my former activity, or rather that planet which had 
 governed all the vicissitudes of my life, still ruled the changes it 
 underwent, and which caused it to subside into its present happy 
 tranquillity. 
 
 At first, the only drawback we felt to the most perfect bliss was, 
 the necessity there was for our often being separated. Mr. Mas- 
 tings' weak state preventing him from moving from Yorkshire, 
 Bertha could never leave him, and my own duties forced me to 
 London. We both felt the misery of this, and, young as I was, I 
 began to yearn after the far more happy, though less glorious, 
 pursuits that blessed my domestic life. The letters of Bertha almost 
 broke my heart, and I sighed to return to her, even were it at the 
 expense of my office and seat in Parliament. 
 
 In this situation I beheld with indifference, as far as they were 
 concerned, if I did not behold with something like pleasure, a 
 heavy storm lowering in the political horizon, which might drive 
 
326 DE CLIFFORD ; 
 
 me from office ; and all my sorrow at it was, that it would drive my 
 patron from office too. It, however, gave him the opportunity 
 more and more of shewing himself the superior man he was. 
 
 The power of the assailants, which, for a time, nothing could 
 withstand, and which in fact stormed the closet of the king, was 
 the consequence of one of those infamous coalitions, in which, to 
 the disgrace of human nature, all the most sacred professions and 
 principles of conduct were broadly and impudently sacrificed, for 
 the sake of obtaining power and pelf. 
 
 For a lime the assault was irresistible, though Lord Castleton 
 opposed it with firmness and ability, and, to his immortal honour, 
 refused all compromise with his principles, by rejecting with 
 disdain advantageous offers that were made him to join the party 
 coming in. This made him retire, though, with the continued 
 favour of the king and the support of the people, who regarded 
 him with honour, his opponents with indignation. His behaviour 
 under it stamped him with me higher than ever, and only made 
 me laugh at the abuse of the phraseology of historians (surely any 
 thing but philosophers), when they call a minister, who loses his 
 power, disgraced. Lord Castleton, though overpowered, was any 
 thing but disgraced : 
 
 " What, though the field was lost, 
 All was not lost." 
 
 The unconquerable will, and possession of his mind in the cause 
 of consistency and patriotism, still remained. 
 
 At first, he had no party to support him against an overwhelming 
 aristocracy, and he was completely prepared to carry into effect 
 those sentiments which so charmed me in one of oar conversations 
 on the uncertainty and chagrins of power, when he said that one 
 philosophic page read in the closet, with a heart expanding to the 
 wonders and bounties of the Creator, made all the glitter of party 
 success mean in the comparison \ When he had therefore retired 
 into private life, and was actually at Castleton, I could not help ap- 
 plying to him some of those lines of Pope, as emphatic as well- 
 turned, to another minister, who deserved them, I ween, far less 
 than he : — 
 
 " In vain to deserts thy retreat is made, 
 The Muse attends thee in thy silent shade ; 
 'Tis her's the brave man's latest steps to trace, 
 Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace. 
 When int'rest calls off all her sneaking train, 
 And all the obliged desert, and all the vain; 
 
 1 See Vol. II. p. 71. 
 
OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 327 
 
 Ev'n now she shades thy ev'ning walks with bays, 
 ( No hireling she, no prostitute to praise) ; 
 Ev'n now, observant of the parting ray, 
 Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day, 
 Through fortune's cloud, one truly great shall see, 
 Nor fears to tell that Castleton is he '." 
 
 Unfortunately, however, for the glory of my patron s martyr- 
 dom, though the firmness he displayed in the first shock gave pro- 
 mise of his going through with it, the time of probation was loo 
 short to complete his pretensions. For his opponents, drunk with 
 their victory, like other drunken men, could not contain them- 
 selves, but, in the pride and confidence of their hearts, meditated 
 no less than to deprive the crown of its constitutional power ; for 
 which they were justly hurled from their own. The consequence 
 was, the return of Lord Castleton to his former post, and an invi- 
 tation to me to return to mine. 
 
 What might have been the event, had we been all living during 
 the interval in London, plunged with the rest of my party in the 
 struggle that was going on, I do not know. But as it was, we had 
 been leading so heavenly a life, all in all to each other, that to fore- 
 go it, and, as it were, re-enter a world of strangers, suited not the 
 taste of either Bertha or myself. My own resolution was not in- 
 deed so determined as her's, and was just so far balanced that the 
 least favouring incident might decide it one way or the other. 
 That incident was not wanting ; yet was it of the simplest, and, as 
 may be thought, of the commonest kind, though it possessed my 
 whole heart at the time 5 and, as these memoirs have been little 
 more than a picture of that heart, I know not that I can make a 
 better close than by relating it. 
 
 The proposal from Lord Castleton had "been brought us by the 
 post. Bertha and Mr. Hastings declared they would have no voice 
 in it—that they would not be even consulted, but all should be left 
 to myself. Bertha even affected to be indifferent to a permanent 
 remove from Foljambe, which it was agreed would be necessary if 
 I accepted. Nobody, however, had spoken, and there had been a 
 conscious silence for an hour, when we proceeded to take our usual 
 walk. 
 
 It was an almost night-walk in sweetest summer. The evening 
 had stolen luxuriously on our senses-, the turf was like velvet to our 
 feet; the gardens shed a thousand balms through the air; all our 
 thoughts were at home. 
 
 Our way lay along the margin of the lake, immoveable from the 
 stillness, and just reflecting the tailer trees in the soft tints of twi- 
 light. Some thirty or forty deer had come down to the water-side, 
 
 ' Verses to Lord Oxford, wilh Parneirs Works. 
 
328 DE CLIFFORD} OR, THE CONSTANT MAN. 
 
 to drink, and repose for the night. The freshness, sweetness, and 
 quiet of the scene, reminded me of the description of that season 
 wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated," when, as it is held, 
 
 " The bird of dawning singeth all night long, 
 And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad ; 
 The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, 
 Nor faery takes, nor witch hath pow'r to charm : 
 So hallowed, and so gracious is the time." 
 
 My bosom expanded with a pleasure indescribable, but of the 
 purest kind 5 gratitude, as well as joy in a lot which had indeed 
 fallen upon me in a goodly ground. Could I think of parting with 
 it, even had I been alone? But the partner of my mind and the 
 adored of my heart hung on my arm. She, too, was informed with 
 the same feelings 5 she, too, revelled in such a scene, an equal votary 
 of heaven, herself lovelier than any of heaven's works. 
 
 Neither of us spoke, or attempled to describe what we felt. The 
 purest joys, indeed, are generally silent. Each sought happiness 
 from the book of nature, and each read the other's feelings in that 
 silent book. 
 
 Consentaneously we embraced. I pressed her to my heart 5 and 
 on her lips " sucked the honey of her music vows in the midst 
 of which a low whisper stole on my ear — 66 Promise not to take me 
 from this place — promise to renounce ambition, and let me be your 
 only mistress." 
 
 I promised 5 and if ever there were minds mingled together, it 
 was ours at that instant, when we were so united in this sentiment, 
 that angels might have thought there were moments, even upon 
 earth, which might equal their own. 
 
 Have I explained why, from that instant, I did as I promised, 
 renounce ambition, and offered it at the shrine of domestic happiness, 
 
 " Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books; 
 Ease and alternate labour, useful life, 
 Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven." 
 
 THE END.